PHM-Exch> Two child norm sidetracks issue

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Gopal Dabade <drdabade at gmail.com>


THE HINDU

*Date:23/09/2009*



*URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/09/23/stories/2009092354240400.htm *


*‘Two-child norm sidetracks issue’  *Bageshree S.

It is coercive and anti-poor, says NGO. *‘Focus on the health indicators of
women and children’. **‘In most cases family size is linked to poverty’*



Bangalore: Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa’s recent proposal to limit
welfare schemes of the State to families that have not more than two
children is a “coercive, anti-poor, anti-people policy”. The Government
would do well to instead focus on the health indicators of women and
children which gives greater cause for concern.

Evidence has been preseted of the grave consequences of the two-child norm
from health data from several States that have introduced the norm:
e.g, Total Fertility Rate has remained stable; contraceptive use has
increased.
“So why is the Government desperate to reduce the fertility level?”. On the
contrary,  the Government should worry about the declining health indicators
of women and children.

Consider this: The proportion of anaemic pregnant women has often gone
up; the proportion of anaemic infants has jumped up; vaccination coverage
has dropped and children aged below three are still underweight. The Infant
Mortality Rate  continues to be unacceptably high .

The focus on the two-child norm amounts to “sidetracking from the main issue
of human development”.

The two-child norm can lead to forced abortions, abandonment and neglect of
the girl child, and ill-treatment and abandonment of women who bear female
children by their husbands and in-laws.

In most cases family size is linked to poverty. “Where the two-child norm is
linked to political participation, studies have found that it
disproportionately affects the participation of those who are poor and those
belonging to socially discriminated groups and restricts their voices in
democratic, local self-government.
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