The Govt’s decision on maternity benefits for the second child, if girl, raises many doubts
Last week, the Union Government said that its maternity benefits programme involving a cash transfer of Rs 5,000 to the mother at the birth of her first child will now be extended to cover the birth of the second child, provided that the second child is a girl. The official announcement on February 2 said that the benefits under the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana “for the second child may be provided only if the second child is the girl child to discourage pre-birth sex selection and promote the girl child”. It is turning into a controversy with women’s rights activists saying the proposal is discriminatory. Under the Yojana, cash of Rs 5,000, along with a separate Rs 1,000 for institutional delivery, will be given to the mother of the first child. The scheme, under the Ministry of Women and Child Development, aims to ensure a nutritional diet for pregnant mothers and partially compensate them for their wage loss. The objective is to solve the problem of undernourishment and temporary unemployment. Now the Government has to clarify several doubts arising out of the extension of cash benefits to a mother’s second pregnancy where the child is a girl. The scheme was originally designed for the mother to get nutritious food when she is pregnant so that the child is born healthy, too. By what logic can this objective apply to the gender of the second child? Here is a look at the trail of confusion the proposal leads to.
Illegal sex determination tests are even now surreptitiously sought to identify a female foetus. The prospect of a cash incentive for a girl can also be a reason for conducting the sex test. If the foetus is a girl, she will live because of the cash incentive. But what if it is a boy? The question puts orthodox patriarchal families in a quandary. It is a matter of deciding between having a son for patriarchal reasons and getting extra cash for having a girl. Where the second child is a male, there is no incentive left to try for a girl child in the third instance. But if the second child is a male, the mother is discriminated against as she is ineligible for the cash and neither she nor her child would benefit from nutritious food. The proposal does not also check population growth. For instance, in cases where the first two children are girls, some parents may keep trying for a male child irrespective of incentives. The other issue is, the proposal for extending the incentive to a girl child runs counter to the National Food Security Act, 2013. For, Chapter II of the Act clearly says, “Every pregnant woman and lactating mother shall be entitled to a meal, free of charge….to meet the nutritional standards… (and) maternity benefit of not less than Rs 6,000….” It specifies neither the gender of the child nor the number of the pregnancy.