Dagestan: selective abortions spark disputes among demographers and social workers

In Dagestan, the practice of selective abortions remains a problem, the employees of the republic's social organizations interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" have noted. In their turn, demographers are sure that the ratio of the birth rate of boys and girls in Dagestan is within the biological norm.

The organizations engaged in social and psychological work are facing the phenomenon of selective abortions, Evgenia Velichkina, Director of the Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization (ANO) "Warm House on the Hill" Centre for the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"We are facing the practice, when a woman is forced to have an abortion because of the child's sex. I would not say that this is very common, but there are such facts," Ms Velichkina has stated, noting that this practice is more common in rural areas.

In the Republic of Dagestan, there is no trend of increase dynamics of such cases, Svetlana Anokhina, the editor-in-chief of the "Daptar" magazine believes.

"We wrote about selective abortions; now, the situation has not changed: neither worsened nor improved. Usually, women are not forced; they make such decisions themselves. Because there may be competition, if there are girls only, he may take a second wife," Ms Anokhina told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

In the ratio of girls to boys in the 0-4 years age group, presented by the republic's statistics committee (Dagstat), there is no deviation from the biological norm, which corresponds to the birth of 105-107 boys per 100 girls, Konstantin Kazenin, the head of the Centre for Regional and Urban Studies of the Russian Academy of National Economy and State Service, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"This statistics does not allow us to speak about any artificial influence on the sex ratio, for example, about regularly performed gender-based abortions," he has added.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on October 12, 2020 at 02:00 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.