Awareness about Female Feticide among Adolescents in Rural Areas of Haryana: a School Based Cross-sectional Study

The greatest threat in India is the menace of skewed sex ratio. The down sex ratio leads to many crimes such as illegal trafficking of women, sexual assaults, polygamy and dehumanization of society. The objective was to study the awareness regarding female feticide in blocks Beri of district Jhajjar, Haryana. The study was carried out in the rural block Beri (District Jhajjar, Haryana). The Beri block has 18 Government senior secondary schools. The students of classes 9th, 10th, 11th & 12th from all 18 government senior secondary school were included in the study. The study was of cross-sectional descriptive type. The study was conducted over a period of one year i.e September 2013 to August 2014 and included 1080 adolescents. A total of 60 students from each government senior secondary school were included in the study to complete the sample size. Fifteen students from each 9th, 10th, 11th & 12th class of every school were selected by simple random sampling. The study found that awareness about female feticide was high i.e. (87%) subjects were aware while the sex wise, majority of girls (91.5%) and boys (82.3%) were aware about female feticide. Source of information about female feticide among 940 subjects, nearly half (47.4%) of the study subjects got awareness from teachers and school activities like drama, competitions and awareness rallies. The present study intends to get chapters in school curriculum that creates awareness about female feticide across the country. It is the youth that can bring about a change in the society and mindset of people.