By Rima Saini

Born out of poverty, skewed cultural norms, entrenched sexist attitudes and weakly enforced legislation, female foeticide is an undeniable problem in Indian society. Rima Saini looks at the story behind India's 'missing girls', and the fight to put a stop to this worryingly widespread practice.

The 2011 Indian census threw up some bleak statistics about the uneven gender balance in modern Indian society; for every 1,000 boys between the ages of 0-6 there are only 914 girls. 10 years ago, this figure was worrying enough at 927. For all the economic progress India has made in that time, propagating a gradual westernisation of culture and cautious modernisation of attitudes, the girl child is still seen by so many families as a disappointment. With this modernisation has come better access to sophisticated technology such as ultrasound scanners allowing the unwanted female foetus to be quietly flushed away so families can hold out for their golden boy. Thousands of women a year around the world undergo abortion for a number of reasons; medical complications, age factors and no doubt financial or familial pressures, but not on so systematic and ingrained a level as in some countries, India being a prime case in point.

Jammu and Kashmir, the state that has been exposed as statistically having the most dire child sex ratio, has vowed to put aside its very political, religious differences to tackle the problem; ulema imams and representatives from the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front have been condemning the un-Islamic nature of foeticide and members of Hindu groups including Bajrang Dal and the Shiv Sena have declared their supposed willingness to share a platform with their political opponents in what they seem to have dramatically coined the 'fight' against female foeticide. Campaigns in other states have tried to connect with individuals through more creative media of dance and drama; in Haryana, for example, eunuchs have changed the name of a bollywood song that was a huge hit last year 'sheila ki jawani; to 'betiyon ki kahani' (daughter's story) name-checking daughters of the state and medal-winning female athletes to show the heights that Indian women can, and have, reached.

But all the campaigns, public service announcements and sing-alongs are futile without considering why are boys still revered so highly in Indian society. The problem, according to India-based NGO Laadli, is the patriarchal social framework that still values boys for the role they have traditionally adopted in taking over the family business, supporting their parents in their old age and carrying on the family name. The exchange of a dowry, payments made from the bride's family to the groom, is one of of those anachronistic traditions that perpetuates the image of the son as the breadwinner, and the daughter as a burden. But financial issues aside, these entrenched attitudes have still proven enduringly stubborn.

India has long been an example of strange societal dichotomies; poverty and wealth, science and superstition, equality and prejudice often exist side by side. But it is difficult to accept how parents and families seek to play God in a country steeped in religion, spirituality and fatalism but increasingly aspirational, forward-looking and, you would assume, progressive. Although women are guaranteed formal equality under the law, popular religious and cultural practices still contribute to their inferior status in society. Pressure does not only bear on the expectant mother but on the child she will bear throughout her whole life; even the most educated and career-driven women can feel suffocated within the archaic confines of cultural expectations.

The India-based campaigning body Save a Girl Child for this reason espouses the role of education in undermining damaging gender norms, alongside stronger enforcement of legislation leading to more convictions of the perpetrators of infanticide or now outlawed sex-selection techniques. As research has shown, these practices stretch across all socio-economic groups, and is just as prevalent among the educated as well as the illiterate. According to the organisation, the child sex ratio is far more skewed in the more developed states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh with the country's capital New Delhi, among those at the top of the list. A BBC Asian Network report from some years ago also brought to light that even among the UK Diaspora, almost 1,500 fewer girls were born to Indian mothers in England and Wales between 1990 and 2005 than would have been expected for that group.

I worry whether the picture will remain as bleak in the next ten years, therefore, when these biases seem to penetrate into the very heart of the Indian psyche. The work being undertaken by NGOs, activicts and genuine law enforcers is futile without a fundamental change in the hearts and minds of the communities and families perpetuating these practices; it is inconceivable that we can let another generation of girls become lost to a prejudiced society.