An Indiamart listing for a `gender prediction'kit promising totell parents the sex of their baby after just 10 weeks ofpregnancy has beentaken off the site. A day after Mirror reported how
IntelliGender home sex-testkit was easily available online and delivered throughout
the country, severalother domestic e-commerce portals advertising this kit
followed suit andremoved the ads from their websites. The selective abortion of
female foetusesis rampant in India, resulting in a tragically skewed sex ratio
of 914 girls to1,000 boys in the country. The situation is more morbid in
Gujarat where theratio is 883 girls to 1,000 boys. Mirror's report `Battle
against female foetusgoes online' (AM; Nov 10) highlighted how this pre-natal
sex prediction kitspelt trouble for states where the practice of killing
females in the womb isconsidered both practical and socially acceptable.
Indiamart.com, which claims to be India's largest
online business-to-business marketplace, advertised `IntelliGender Gender
Prediction Test Kit' which assured identification of a foetus's gender through
a urine test. The official IntelliGender website states, “IntelliGender is
designed for easy home use by curious expectant mothers. In minutes, the test
indicates your gender result based upon an easy-to-read colour match.Green
indicates boy and orange indicates girl!“ The kit was also available on
in.ebid.net, an online auction website, and http:www.indianindustry.com,
another online marketplace. However, the portals stopped removed the
advertisements a day after the Mirror report was published.
Considering that genderbased abortions are banned in
India, such advertisements for prenatal gender selection kits are illegal.
According to PreConception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act,
any kind of advertisement relating to sex determination test is illegal and a
punishable offence.
When contacted, Vijendrasingh Mansingh Rajput from
Indiamart (Ahmedabad) said, “The advertisement must have been put up on the
website accidentally. However, since this product is banned in India,
advertising it goes against the rules. Hence, we have removed the online ads
related to this product.“
The existing Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act,
1971, allows abortion till the 20th week of pregnancy. An amendment has been
proposed to allow abortion till the 24th week.
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