Statistics collected by Mumbai\u2019s International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), a public health organisation, show that about 21 per cent of males and four per cent of females in rural areas admitted to pre-marital sex against an urban figure of 11 per cent of males and two per cent of females. The IIPS survey sample of 55,000 males and females comes from about 1.7 lakh households in Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh. The age range is 15-29.<\/div>\n
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Nineteen-year-old Jyoti is still struggling to cope with what has happened to her. The tiny, cheerful Jyoti, who studied till class six, belongs to the Ho tribe of Jharkhand and is from Gua village of West Singhbhum district. Covered in Saranda forest, with the largest sal cover, the district has rich iron ore deposits and is dominated by Maoists.<\/div>\n
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\u201cA boy in my neighbourhood moved to Delhi to work. He used to get me gifts each time he visited the village. He told me that he loves me and wants to settle with me in Delhi,\u201d recalls Jyoti.<\/div>\n
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When Jyoti missed her period for the first month, she ate unripe papaya with peppercorn. She waited for two weeks with no result. \u201cI ate dry henna powder later but it didn\u2019t help. That\u2019s when I told my elder sister who is already married and lives in another village. She fumed and threatened to tell my parents. I pleaded and that\u2019s when she took me to a\u00a0
dai<\/em>\u00a0(midwife) who did not know anyone from my family or village.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201c\u00a0<\/span>Second trimester abortions are difficult, life-threatening, and require approval from two doctors. They are also costly and far harder to obtain. Single women are vulnerable; they are often unequipped to detect pregnancy, lack partner support, and have confidentiality issues that delay the process of seeking medical help<\/strong><\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\nDais<\/em>\u00a0are traditional midwives. Among the Ho tribe,\u00a0dais<\/em>\u00a0are also supposed to link childbirth to their religious faith. The birth of a child is said to bring a risk of attack by evil spirits. This is why all delivery waste is buried, and nobody is allowed to enter the delivery room except the attendant.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The\u00a0
dai<\/em>\u00a0diagnosed a pregnancy and asked Jyoti to keep an extract of medicinal roots and shrubs in her vagina for two to three days. She cannot recall the name of the herbs used.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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It did not lead to any result.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Two months had passed by this time. The\u00a0
dai<\/em>\u00a0then gave her a concoction of boiled betel nut roots and jaggery. \u201cIt was bitter and caused immense pain in my abdomen. I could not go to the primary health centre and obviously could not tell my parents. I know they would have killed me.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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It was then that Jyoti decided to call her boyfriend Tarun. \u201cHe was shocked but supportive. He came back to the village within four days and met my father, offering to marry me. My father, a farmer, accepted a bride price of
\u00a0Rs.\u00a0<\/span>5,001 and arranged for the wedding in the next two weeks.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Tarun, 21, is an office boy in Delhi and had to feign a lack of leave from work to hasten the process. By the time Jyoti managed to reach Delhi, she had entered the second trimester of her pregnancy.<\/div>\n
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A thorough check-up revealed that Jyoti\u2019s embryo had been damaged by the herbal remedy. The ultrasound revealed that a 14-week foetus without a heartbeat was present in her womb. The foetus was surgically removed and Jyoti\u2019s womb was perforated in the process. She can never be pregnant again.<\/div>\n
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\u201cThe entire village goes to the\u00a0
dai<\/em>. I had to find somebody far enough for my parents to not know. Going to the primary health centre was out of the question,\u201d Jyoti replied, when I asked why she chose to go to the\u00a0dai<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
While abortion through pills is considered safe, it often leads to haemorrhage, incomplete abortion, and is discouraged for anaemic women since it causes heavy bleeding. Surgery is a vacuum evacuation process that minimises the chances of incomplete abortion but is costlier, though quicker.<\/div>\n
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Studies show that a considerable proportion\u2014one-fifth\u2014of young abortion-seekers delayed the termination of pregnancy until the second trimester. The unmarried ones were significantly more likely to have done so than the married: one-quarter of the unmarried, compared to nine per cent of the married, delayed abortion until beyond 12 weeks of pregnancy.<\/div>\n
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Last year, Savita Halappanavar in Ireland was denied an abortion because of it being a second trimester pregnancy. Irish law denied an abortion and she later died. Though India joined the bandwagon in demanding changes in Ireland\u2019s abortion law, finally introduced two months ago, the Indian state\u2019s attitude towards the abortion rights of women, regardless of class or marital status, remains unchanged.<\/div>\n
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Second-trimester abortions are difficult, life-threatening, and require approval from two doctors. They are also costly and far harder to obtain. Single women are vulnerable; they are often unequipped to detect pregnancy, lack partner support, and have confidentiality issues that delay the process of seeking medical help.<\/div>\n
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Dr Manisha Gupte, a pioneer in advocating abortion rights for women, says, \u201cIt is evident that women\u2019s right to control their sexuality, fertility and reproduction were not the basis on which the MTP Act was formulated or interpreted. As a result, no government ever initiated programmes to make single women aware that they have a legal right to abortion.\u201d<\/div>\n
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A survey by the Guttmacher Institute, which works on reproductive and sexual health globally, suggests that only six per cent of women above 25 are not married in India.<\/div>\n
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The government of India introduced family planning in 1952, and passed the MTP Act in 1972. It\u2019s been 60 years since family planning was introduced, and 40 years since abortions were made accessible for women on many conditions, except on demand.<\/div>\n
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MTP centres were opened in several government hospitals or independently to make abortion accessible to women who met the criteria. Yet these centres are often inaccessible and dismissed as an option. The MTP centres originated with the understanding that they would contribute to family planning.<\/div>\n
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Many operate under the assumption that the women who come to these centres are married. Often, abortion services are provided in exchange for promises to use contraceptives; in several cases, contraceptives like Copper T are inserted into the women\u2019s vaginas immediately after abortion.<\/div>\n
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Moreover, most MTP centres are in urban areas, unavailable to rural women whose minds are in any case clouded with myths about abortion.<\/div>\n
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In the Seventh Five-Year Plan (1985-1990), the government stated its intention of equipping all primary health centres to conduct abortions. Yet the dearth of such centres continues. Fresh figures state that Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have the lowest ratios of MTP per 1,000 persons, even when they have the highest number of abortions. Not surprisingly, Bihar has one MTP centre for every 4,45,000 people.<\/div>\n
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To avoid the hassle of travelling miles to government MTP centres, and to keep it quiet and avoid forced contraceptives, people prefer private clinics to government facilities. According to ICMR, only 55 per cent of MTP centres provide manual vacuum evacuation, another alternative for termination of early pregnancy. This is a major deterrent.<\/div>\n
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According to Heidi Bart Johnson, in her paper Abortion Practice in India, \u201cBureaucracy associated with registering MTP facilities with the government and with reporting and recording MTP procedures contributes to the end result that many physicians provide abortion illegally.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Laila was 23 when she discovered she was pregnant with her brother-in-law\u2019s child. Her husband, a daily wage labourer, had died of tuberculosis three years earlier. She was living with her in-laws in Uttampur village, Aligarh. Her brother-in-law had gone to Qatar where he worked as a tailor, one-and-a-half months before she learnt of her\u00a0pregnancy. Completely dependent on her in-laws, Laila went through not just psychological but also emotional trauma.<\/div>\n
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\u201cIslam prohibits abortion. Here I was with a baby in my womb. I wanted to be a mother but being a widow I couldn\u2019t. My brother-in-law was married. There was no way I could keep it,\u201d she recounts. \u201cI had decided to go ahead with abortion but I had to go far off to get it done confidentially.\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201c\u00a0<\/span>To avoid the hassle of travelling miles to government MTP centres, and to keep it quiet and avoid forced contraceptives, people prefer private clinics to government facilities. According to ICMR, only 55 per cent of MTP centres provide manual vacuum evacuation, another alternative for termination of early pregnancy. This is a major deterrant<\/strong><\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Laila, whose parents have since died, was married at 16. She neither had an emotional cushion in terms of confidantes nor the financial means. Her father-in-law was a potato and rice farmer. Laila helped him in the farms. \u201cDuring pregnancy also, I had to pretend that I was all right and worked for days on end since it was the harvest season.\u201d Laila could not leave the fields to consult a local
\u00a0dai<\/em>\u00a0or find ways to see the doctor. Her bump was visible three-and-a-half months later.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cMy mother-in-law asked why my stomach was swollen. I denied any knowledge. She didn\u2019t believe me and took me to a local\u00a0
dai<\/em>. They figured it out and questioned me. I told them who the father was.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
When Laila\u2019s mother-in-law cross- checked with her son, he refused to take responsibility. \u201cThey didn\u2019t listen for a second after that. They threw me out of the house late in the evening, cursed me, and said they cannot keep a prostitute in their house.\u201d Pleading didn\u2019t help. By the next morning, everyone in the village knew what happened. Even the local\u00a0
dai<\/em>\u00a0refused to help.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A local NGO called Udaan Society came forward. \u201cWe got to know through the anganwaadi worker about Laila\u2019s condition. She was deeply traumatised and had nowhere to go. We arranged for the termination of her pregnancy surgically,\u201d says Abdul Basit from Udaan. Laila is now a volunteer for Udaan and lives in Aligarh city.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Laila and Jyoti were lucky to get support from an NGO and a husband respectively, but a large section of pregnant women wanting to abort don\u2019t. The lack of institutionalised abortion rights turns women in vulnerable situations to private clinics. They charge exorbitant fees for low-quality services.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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However, women are forced to barter quality for confidentiality which the bureaucratic MTP centres with their guilt-ridden and judgmental environments fail to provide.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Also, Mitra, Jyoti and Laila\u2019s cases may give the impression that the problem is limited to women who are economically dependent. This is not the case.<\/div>\n
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