Gender Discrimination Against Women in South Asia

Introduction: Women in South Asia's Patriarchal Context

South Asia consists of seven separate independent states with varied socio-economic and ethnic populations, an array of religious beliefs, different laws, and distinct economic and political obligations — all of which influence the lives of women in this part of the world. Despite this diversity, the region shares several cohesive features, and South Asian women experience identical circumstances on a number of issues. Gradually, on several indicators of welfare, South Asian women are found to be better off today than they were several decades ago: their life expectancy has been rising steadily, more women have attained education and entered employment, many have joined local-level politics, and there is a heightened appreciation of the urgency to address women's issues, understand gender relations, and strive toward justice and empowerment for women. Despite these improvements, the overall picture of women's development has been negatively affected in this age of modernity throughout the world.

The South Asian region is still known as a "patriarchal zone" where the position of women is lower than that of men within kin-ordered social organizations. Women possess low status, have little or no title to property and land, and suffer from non-recognition of their unpaid work. In South Asia, women are frequently prone to discrimination throughout their lives with little or no hope of relief. In childhood, they are not given adequate food, are deprived of education, and are not taken to hospitals. In their teenage years, many are married off without their consent, and some are forced into the sex trade or bonded labor. In their roles as wives and mothers, they are treated as little more than helpers in farming and as child-bearing machines.

If they outlive their husbands, they are often deprived of inheritance rights, banished from their homes, and compelled to live in poverty on the streets. Socio-cultural customs, rooted in patriarchal beliefs widespread in the region, restrict women's freedom of movement and prevent them from taking advantage of opportunities to develop their potential. Gender discrimination is measurable across every sphere — including the narrow field of labor markets and the broader areas of education, nutrition, health, and political participation — and women in nearly every South Asian nation are subjected to unfair treatment in modern society.

Nearly 80 million women in South Asia go unaccounted for — killed in the womb or before their first birthday — as a result of acute gender discrimination. The bulk of work performed by women in this region goes unnoticed and unrecognized, and their financial contribution is a tiny fraction of that of men. The invisibility of women within the economy is a global phenomenon, but in South Asia its effect is especially insidious. Female literacy stands at just one-third of the adult literate population in the region. Furthermore, as a result of discrimination in educational, economic, and social spheres, women are effectively barred from the centers of political power. A mere 7.4% of parliamentarians in the region are women, their representation in the judiciary stands at only 6%, and only 9% of civil servants are women.

Female Infanticide, Sex Selection, and Skewed Sex Ratios

Women in these regions are unable to make decisions in their own favor on a wide range of issues. They rarely work for a wage and have little control over resources. Their freedom of movement is restricted, and violence is perpetrated against them by male relatives. In South Asian nations, women have been murdered for dishonoring male relatives — through extramarital relationships, choosing their own marriage partners against their parents' wishes, or seeking a divorce. Throughout South Asia, arranged marriages are customary and can at times be deeply humiliating experiences. Two forms predominate: bride wealth, in which the bride's family effectively transfers her to the highest bidder, and dowry, in which the bride's family pays large sums to the groom's family. Many women have suffered horrific acid attacks as a consequence of inadequate dowry payments.

Gender discrimination at every phase of the female life cycle contributes to these outcomes. Discrimination against females begins in the womb. Because ultrasound technology makes it possible to determine the sex of a fetus, sex-selective abortion is widespread in some regions. Female infanticide also occurs. At one hospital in Mumbai, out of 8,000 pregnancy terminations carried out following amniocentesis, 7,999 involved female fetuses, according to a report by Indian government authorities. Sociologists and government officials began documenting isolated instances of female infanticide in India roughly ten years prior to the time of writing. The practice of killing newborn girls generally occurs in rural areas in India. Although no comprehensive record of its extent exists, a survey by the Community Services Guild of Madras, in the state of Tamil Nadu, found that among 1,250 women interviewed, more than 50% had killed female infants.

Reports of female infanticide abound, driven by the fact that raising a girl child can be a financial burden. The sex ratio in India stands at approximately 960 females to every 1,000 males — a consequence of the fact that boys provide more labor in an agricultural society and do not require a dowry at marriage. Women are criticized or humiliated for giving birth to daughters. In India, a young daughter is considered a temporary member of her birth family and a drain on its wealth. A daughter's parents are regarded as caretakers whose primary duty is to deliver a virtuous daughter, along with a substantial dowry, to her husband's family.

According to R. Venkatachalam, director of the Community Services Guild of Madras: "It is believed that raising a girl is akin to watering a neighbor's plant. Right from birth till death, there are expenses." He argues that dowry represents a total drain on a family's lifetime savings, yet is considered indispensable for arranging a suitable marriage and maintaining the family's reputation. Following the birth of a daughter, rural women immediately begin asking whether they have the resources to support her throughout her lifetime, and when they conclude that they do not, some kill the infant. As one twenty-year-old mother living in the same village expressed: "You have to do it after two or three daughters. What is the reason for asking for more?"

These practices have produced severely distorted female-to-male ratios across South Asia. In childhood, South Asian girls suffer from what has been termed "compassionate neglect": their nutrition is inferior to that of males of the same age, they receive fewer immunizations, and they are taken to a doctor only after considerable delay. Research has found that a girl between her first and fifth birthday in India or Pakistan has a 30% to 50% greater chance of dying than a boy of the same age. Juxtaposed with the typical ratio of approximately 95 girls born for every 100 boys globally, India recorded 92.7 girls per 100 boys in 2001, and in states such as Punjab and Gujarat the ratio was as low as 79.3 and 87.8 respectively. This skewed sex ratio among children under six years of age is forecast to worsen further across the region.

Health Disparities Across the Female Life Cycle

In adolescence, young women encounter new challenges to their health. Many give birth to their first child while still teenagers — a circumstance that significantly elevates health risks during pregnancy. Even for South Asian women who become mothers in adulthood, antenatal and reproductive health care is typically poor, and childbirth at home in unhygienic conditions is common. Compounding these conditions is the reality that women are less likely than men to seek or receive proper medical care.

According to the 1988 report by India's Department of Women and Child Development, Indian women typically experience eight to nine pregnancies, of which slightly more than six result in live births and four or five of those children survive. Women are expected to spend 80% of their reproductive years pregnant or breastfeeding. A study conducted by the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and the Environment in the small Himalayan village of Bemru found that childbirth in most cases takes place in cattle stalls, as villagers believe that holy cows protect the mother and newborn from evil spirits. Childbirth is regarded as unclean, and the mother and newborn are treated as "untouchables" for approximately two weeks after delivery. The study further observed that regardless of whether a woman is young, old, or pregnant, she is denied rest: women in the village performed 59% of all work, frequently laboring for 14 hours a day and carrying loads one and a half times their own body weight. Following two or three pregnancies, their energy is exhausted, their bodies become emaciated, and by their late thirties they are worn out and depleted.

As Fikree and Pasha observe, "the present societal conditions render the costs of raising a daughter so steep that families are reluctant to invest even scarce resources in their betterment." In many cultures, women and girls eat only after men and boys have finished. Women are frequently admitted to hospital only when their condition has become critical — a major reason why many mothers die in childbirth. Female children are rarely admitted to hospitals at all. A 1990 review of patient data from Islamabad Children's Hospital in Pakistan found that 71% of children admitted under the age of two years were boys. Across all age groups, the number of boys admitted to surgery, pediatric intensive care, and diarrhea wards was twice that of girls.

The survival prospects for the girl child are extremely poor. Approximately 20% of girls born in countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh die before reaching the age of five. In India, nearly 25% of the 12 million girls born annually die before the age of 15. The World Health Organization recognizes maternal and child health inequities as a global priority, yet in South Asia structural discrimination consistently undermines progress in this area.

Conclusion: Persistent Discrimination in a Modern Era

Throughout South Asia, regardless of constitutional mandates of equality, South Asian women and girls face diverse forms of discrimination in the legal, financial, political, and cultural realms of life. Although the nature of discrimination varies considerably across geographical regions, ethnic groups, and age cohorts, an overarching theme persists: a social and cultural attitude survives in this modern era in which women are regarded as inferior and in which the cycle of discrimination begins at birth. Across South Asia, the enforcement of laws designed to protect or empower women is impeded by cultural context, lack of awareness of legal provisions, and an absence of political will among law enforcement officials and the judiciary.