Sterilisation: India
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GENDER WISE - Female sterilization up 36%, males' dips 24%
Himanshi Dhawan The Times of India Feb 04 2015
41L Women Underwent Ops In 2014
It seems the daunting task of family planning in India is increasingly becoming the responsibility of its women. The number of women who underwent sterilization surgery increased by 36% even as the number of male sterilizations dropped by 24% last year. According to health ministry data accessed through RTI, the number of female sterilizations increased from 30.22 lakh in 2012-2013 to 41.28 lakh in 2013-2014.Male sterilizations -which were already low -dropped further from 1.20 lakh to 91,652 in the same period.
Ironically , the upswing in the number of female surgeries have been reported in a year which saw a botched health camp for sterilizations in Chhattisgarh left 11 women dead and 40 in shock and trauma. Investigations later revealed that scant attention had been paid to procedures, including medicines and hygiene. The incident took place in November last year.
The data -given in response to queries by UP resi dent Kush Kalra -shows the number of sterilizations done on men is a fraction of surgeries conducted on women. For instance Maharashtra that has the highest number of female sterilizations (5.32 lakh) had barely 17,235 male sterilizations in 2013 2014. The state is followed by Bihar with 5.11 lakh female sterilizations but only 3,294 male sterilizations. Madhya Pradesh has conducted 3.54 lakh sterilizations on women as compared to 6,396 sterilizations on men in the same period. Tamil Nadu conducted 3.21 lakh surgeries on women as compared to 1,384 men while Andhra Pradesh re corded 3.09 lakh surgeries on women against 9,058 on men.
Health experts say the burden of the government sponsored sterilization campaign remains with women.These health camps have questionable quality of care.
A report by Population Foundation of India and others found that 85% of the government budget for family planning in Chhattisgarh was spent on incentives and compensation for women while only 1.3% was spent on equipment, transport, awareness campaign and staff expenses and 1.5% in spacing methods like oral pills and condoms.Women were reported to be paid as little as Rs 600 on average for the operation as compensation for wages.
