Saket Suman |
13 February, 2015
Even as Internet-savvy Prime Minister Narendra Modi waxes eloquent on his "Beti Bachao, Beti Padao" campaign, big players in the e-commerce market - Amazon, Flipkart and Junglee - are selling sex determination products, particularly e-books that claim "99% Accurate Sex Selection" in the pre-natal stage under his government's nose.
The unregulated sale of such "sex determination" products is alarming as the child sex ratio in India is abysmally low. According to UN data, India's sex ratio has been suffering a continuous decline - from 976 girls to every 1,000 boys in 1961, the figure has come down to 918 in 2011. The Prime Minister had recently said if discrimination against the girl child does not end it could cause a "terrible crisis" because of lack of women in the country but it seems that the big e-commerce players are either unaware of India's low sex ratio or are exploiting the lack of regulations on them.
An e-book titled "Guarantee the Sex of Your Baby", on the online mega store Flipkart goes by the tagline, "Choose a Girl or Boy Using Today's 99.9% Accurate Sex Selection Techniques." Priced at Rs 599, the e-book claims "Girl or Boy - the choice is yours."
You don't need to simply hope that your next baby will be the daughter you always wanted or the son who balances your family.
Guarantee the Sex of Your Baby tells how today's revolutionary medical techniques such as sperm sorting and Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) allow you to choose the sex of your next baby with 99.99% certainty," reads the description of the book. Another book of a mere 80 pages, Sex Selection, published by DIC Press is priced at an astonishing Rs 2633 and runs without a description on Flipkart, raising eyebrows. The book is currently out of stock, implying that all the copies of the book have been sold out.
A Flipkart spokesperson responded in a mail saying, "Flipkart is a marketplace which helps sellers connect with customers across the country. All our sellers are expected to adhere to certain guidelines if they sell with us. Any violation of these guidelines is taken very seriously. We take strict action against sellers who attract negative feedback about their service or are found to be engaged in selling products that are fake, in violation of copyright or any other applicable laws of the land."
For the world's biggest e-commerce website Amazon, the response is two-fold. Amazon.com caters to global audiences while the domain Amazon.in is India-specific. A PR professional handling Amazon told The Statesman that such books are available on amazon.com and not on amazon.in but a thorough inspection of the products on amazon.in reveals this is not the case.
"How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby" is available on amazon.in and runs with a description "A revised edition of the complete guide to the gender selection method best supported by scientific evidence, with evaluations of home ovulation tests, commercially available gender selection kits, and sophisticated clinical tests." The book is available in as many as six formats and editions, including an audio CD version and is priced at Rs 1,727.58.
Guarantee The Sex Of Your Baby, the e-book version of which is available on Flipkart also finds space on amazon.in in both Kindle and paperback editions. "For many people, having a large family isn't a reasonable option. Fortunately, medical science has ushered in a new era of family balancing, where couples can determine their baby's gender...," reads the description of the book on amazon.in.
A few hours after The Statesman sought a response from Amazon India, the e-commerce website removed some of the books from its site and responded later saying, "We remain committed to ensure all products sold on Amazon.in are consistent with local laws and regulations."
However, a number of similar books are still free floating around on the Amazon India website.
unglee.com, a search and comparison site for shoppers owned by Amazon, mentions in its prohibited content list "Products related to gender determination are not allowed" but a search of "How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby," showed 11 product results from various websites that claim to "select" or "determine" the sex of the baby in pre-natal stage.
On 22 January the Supreme Court warned Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to abide by the laws of pre-natal determination of sex (PC-PNDT) Act, saying, "It is directed that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft shall not advertise or sponsor any advertisement which would violate Section 22 of the pre-natal determination of sex (PC-PNDT) Act," following which such advertisements are hardly seen today. A number of e-commerce websites, including Amazon, Flipkart and Junglee, however, continue to sell such products openly and defy all initiatives to end discrimination against the girl child.
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