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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Silent Bengal tops teen mother list

Silent Bengal tops teen mother list

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published Published on Aug 5, 2010   modified Modified on Aug 5, 2010


Bengal has the largest proportion of teenage mothers in the country, according to a data sheet prepared by the family planning division of the Union health ministry.

The grim statistics emerged on a day the Lok Sabha discussed ways to control population and some MPs found merit in Sanjay Gandhi’s iron-fist policy. But Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad hastened to say “once bitten, twice shy” to make clear forcible measures would not be adopted.

The data sheet, prepared ahead of the debate on population stabilisation in the Lok Sabha, said 14 per cent of births in Bengal were to women aged between 15 and 19.

It said 41 per cent of girls in Bengal were married below the age of 18 years, placing the state, along with Rajasthan, second from the top in illegal marriages. Only Bihar has a higher proportion of 46 per cent girls marrying before 18.

The data also came a day after crime figures revealed that Bengal had become more unsafe for women in 2008 compared to 2000.

Non-government population control activists believe that early marriages and births reflect lack of awareness and a failure of campaigns to reach areas where population control is most needed.

“In parts of the state, any discussion of sexual and reproductive health services is still a taboo among adolescents,” said Sahana Bhowmick, the branch manager with the Family Planning Association of India, Calcutta. “Educational campaigns about the risks of early pregnancy and options to space births have not reached grassroots — and people don’t talk about it,” Bhowmick told The Telegraph.

The health ministry data, based on district-level surveys in 2008, showed that Bihar had the lowest average age of marriage for girls — 17.6 years, followed by Rajasthan with 17.7 years. In Bengal, the average age of marriage was 18.5 years.

The data suggested that Bengal has the highest participation of males in sterilisation with 14 per cent of men undergoing vasectomies, followed by Punjab where 13.4 per cent men underwent the procedure.

But one non-government official involved in delivering population control services in Bengal said the state’s 14 per cent vasectomy figure was “difficult to believe”. In a clinic that the non-government agency operates, the official said, the vasectomy figure was less than 2 per cent.

Yet, Bengal is among eight states that appear to be on the threshold of achieving a total fertility ratio (TFR) of about 2.1 — a so-called replacement level of fertility in which women have just enough babies to replace themselves.

Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Punjab and Haryana have achieved TFRs below 2.1. The poorest-performing states are Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh where TFR is 2.7 or higher.

Bhowmick said most women pregnant below 19 years of age usually visited state hospitals that are overcrowded with little infrastructure for reproductive health counselling. Doctors probably did the best they could to handle the pregnancy, she said, and had little time or the expertise to counsel the women about the disadvantages of early pregnancies.

But early births aren’t confined to eastern and northern India. Karnataka had the second highest proportion (11 per cent) of births to women below 19 years, while Andhra Pradesh had 10 per cent births to women below 19.


The Telegraph, 5 August, 2010, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100805/jsp/frontpage/story_12774063.jsp


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