Speaking at a June 5-6 conference on The New Genetics, at Virchow Clinic of Humboldt University, Berlin, Singh pointed out that women's inferiority is deeply imbedded in the caste system. A wife may be superseded by another wife if she bears daughters only. Both stress the importance of women as the bearers of sons. An estimated 1.5 million of the 12 million females born each year die of neglect in infancy or childhood. Although sex selection by prenatal diagnosis accounts for only a small part of this decline, even in the years between 1981 and 1991, sex selection has always been the major use of prenatal diagnosis in India.
Daughters are expensive because their marriages require dowries.
Singh doubts that laws against sex selection will be effective. He pointed to the example of Chandigarh, a city of 600,000 inhabitants in northern India. The women of Chandigarh have long had one of the highest educational levels in the nation and one of the highest proportions of women in professional careers. The Chandigarh sex ratio has actually declined 22 points since 1991, as educated women take advantage of sex selection in order to have sons. Singh believes that only the destruction of the caste system itself can overcome the low status of women and thus prevent sex selection.