Preventing More "Missing Girls": Policies to Tackle a Preference for Sons
Every year, 1.8 million girls under the age of five go “missing” in parts of Asia, South Caucasus, and the Balkans because of sex selective practices. Consequently, governments in these regions have employed direct measures, such as banning prenatal sex selection technology and providing financial benefits to families that have girls. In this paper by the
World Bank, Sneha Kumar and Nistha Sneha assess these measures and compare the efficacy of direct interventions with measures that indirectly raise the value of daughters. They suggest that bans on the use of sex selection technology may inadvertently worsen the status of the people they aim to protect, while indirect measures, like advocacy and legal reform to promote gender equity, offer greater promise.
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/651541541166182889/pdf/131795-NWP-178-POV178-PRWP8635.pdf
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