The unheard scream of women’s health in India

The state of women’s healthcare and rights in India is in turmoil. On the surface much has changed since the country began its state-sponsored family planning programme that aimed to lower fertility and slow population growth.

The national population policy now advocates the voluntary and informed choice of citizens, improved availability of reproductive healthcare services, and an ongoing commitment to a target-free approach to family planning.

This is in keeping with the spirit of landmark international conferences – notably the 1995 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo – that have asserted women’s health as a human right and women’s empowerment as a development goal in itself.

But the reality on the ground fails to meet these goals. In many areas access to services is virtually non-existent and often limited to sterilisations. Additionally, several states have enacted population policies that some suspect are quietly ushering in numerical targets for abortions.

It seems that the country is in fact witnessing a worsening of women’s status and health, including: increasing violence against women; misuse of medical technologies for female foeticide; the deterioration of sex ratios; and a burden of ill-health imposed by skewed population policies.

It is against this depressing backdrop that Panos South Asia initiated a media fellowship programme on reproductive health. Journalists writing for the mainstream press were given financial and expert editorial support to investigate the social, economic, cultural and political factors that impact on women’s health and rights.

The resulting collection of essays – The unheard scream: reproductive health and women’s lives in India – takes a searing look at the continuing injustices in the healthcare system that impact the poor and marginalised.

For example, Manisha Bhalla looks into sex selective abortions in Punjab. Amidst the lush fields that symbolise India’s ‘green revolution’, Bhalla shows how misogyny, economic prosperity and prenatal screening technology have contributed towards an alarming decline in the female to male sex ratio at birth.

Meanwhile Geetanjali Gangoli focuses on the targeting of female sex workers in HIV control programmes, describing how all other health needs are ignored because these women are merely viewed as ‘vectors’ of the virus. 

The book has been welcomed by the media, activists, policymakers and academics alike, and is even on the curriculum in a couple of universities. It was described by Brinda Karat of the All India Democratic Women’s Association as an “important book [which] can help change policy”.

> More about Panos South Asia
> Details of Unheard Scream