Rights violations in population policies

We reproduce, below, a letter written to Justice JS Varma Chair, National Human Rights Commission New Delhi. The letter in its extracted form is in the print edition of the same issue.

Justice J.S.Varma Chair,
National Human Rights Commission
New Delhi

Dear Sir,

We, representatives of women’s groups and health groups, are deeply disturbed by several issues pertaining to population policies in our country.

In February 2000, the Government of India adopted the National Population Policy 2000. One undoubtedly positive feature of the policy is that it resolutely affirms the “commitment of the government towards voluntary and informed choice and consent of citizens while availing of reproductive health care services, and continuation of the target free approach in administering family planning services”.

It is thus profoundly disturbing that several State governments have announced population policies, which, in very significant ways, violate the letter and the spirit of the National Population Policy. Annexure I provides a summary of these State Population Policies.

Press reports (Outlook, 29th April 2002, Hindustan Times, 23rd April 2002, Annexures III and IV) indicate that, instead of preventing these distortions, the Union cabinet is considering a “Strategy Paper”(Annexure V) to review the national family welfare programme and policy which also violates the spirit of the NPP.

We would also like to bring to your notice, a Bill that has been framed in Uttar Pradesh, the Uttar Pradesh Population Control Bill, 2002 (Annexure VI). This Bill codifies all the anti-human rights features of the State Population Policies that we have referred to. This Bill is clearly violative of the provisions of the NPP 2000.

You would notice that the State population policies contain a series of disincentives and incentives that are anti-women, anti-adivasis, anti-dalit and anti-poor in general. They also are profoundly violative of human and democratic rights.

1. The disincentives proposed, such as denying ration cards and education in government schools for the third child, withdrawal of a range of welfare programmes for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes with more than two children, debarring such people from government jobs etc. are questionable on various grounds. The National Family Health Survey for 1998-99 shows that the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is 3.15 for S.Cs, 3.06 for S.Ts, 2.66 among O.B.Cs and 3.47 among illiterate women as a whole. It is, in contrast, 1.99 among better off women and those likely to be educated beyond the tenth grade. Imposition of the two-child norm, and the disincentives proposed, would thus mean that significant sections among those already deprived populations would bear the brunt of the state’s withdrawal of ameliorative measures, as pitiably inadequate as they are.
2. The two-child norm bars large sections of dalits, adivasis and the poor in general from contesting elections to the PRIs and thus deprives them of their democratic rights. Further, in the States where they have been imposed, as in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, we are aware of substantial numbers of women who have been deserted, or forced to undergo sex selective abortions. In general, such a norm provides an impetus for an increase in sex-selective abortions, worsening an already terrible child sex ratio in the country.
3. As the NPP itself acknowledges, there is a large need for health and safe contraceptive services. To propose punitive measures in this context is clearly absurd. Reflecting deprivation, the dalits, adivasis and Other Backward Castes bear a significantly higher proportion of the mortality load in the country. The National Family Health Survey for 1998-99, notes that the Infant Mortality Rate among the S.Cs, S.T.s and Other Backward Castes is 83, 84 and 76 respectively, compared to 62 for Others. Similarly the Under Five Mortality Rate is 119 among the S.Cs, 126 among the S.T.s 103 among the O.B.Cs compared to 82 among the Others. Clearly, to impose a two-child norm under such circumstances is to widen the inequality gap among our people. Instead of dealing with the causes for these differentials, what the state population policies seek do is to punish victims for their poverty and deprivation.
4. The proposals violate several fundamental rights, the Directive Principles of the Constitution of India, as well as several international Covenants that India is signatory to, including the ICRC, CEDAW as well as the Beijing Platform of Action and the Cairo Declaration.

We are astonished to learn from the press reports referred to earlier, that the Union Cabinet could consider discussing the so called strategy paper which does not have the imprimatur of either the National Population Commission or the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The anonymous document thus does not carry the mandate of any statutory, advisory or decision-making body.

The document itself is poorly substantiated by data, deeply contradictory and shockingly at variance with the National Population Policy 2000. Although the NPP 2000 can be described as weak on many counts, it is firmly committed to respect for human rights, freedom and dignity of women, values that all of us cherish. These were translated into a non-target oriented family welfare programme, which rightly abjured incentives and disincentives. The NPP, as we noted earlier, recognises that there is a large and unmet need for quality health and reproductive and child health services; it also recognises that infant mortality rates are still unconscionably high and that there is an urgent need to strengthen health services, attending particularly to the needs of the poor and the marginalised. Above all, it recognises the need for quality services which respect the dignity of people, even as it emphasises equity.

The “Strategy Paper”, on the other hand, is drafted in the a-historical and unscientific language of Malthusian scare-mongering. While it recognises that infrastructure is weak, and that the quality and coverage of health services are poor, it absurdly attributes these failures of the State primarily to population growth. While it recognises that there is an adverse sex ratio, it is not averse to calling for a two-child national norm when it is absolutely clear that such norms have indeed contributed to the adverse sex ratio. While it recognises that there is an unmet need for health and family welfare services, it contradictorily calls for a range of incentives and disincentives, holding up Andhra Pradesh as an example. Further, it argues, incorrectly, that China continues to have a one-child norm. In any case, comparisons between India and China are inapposite for a large number of reasons, including per-capita incomes, achievements in health, equity and education that India can unfortunately not boast of. Finally, the so-called strategy paper invidiously suggests that concern for rights and equity are current only in NGOs financially supported by UNFPA.

It needs to be put on record that we had, even before the ICPD, and indeed with no links to the UNFPA, critiqued the family planning policy as it then existed. The population policy in the country, it was noted, “has been one of fertility control, pursued relentlessly, and at times coercively, bringing disrepute to the family planning programme and compromising women’s health and accelerating the declining sex ratio”. It is possibly in the light of such critiques, along with the commitments made at the ICPD at Cairo, that the NPP 2000 abjures targets, incentives, disincentives and specifying a two-child norm.

Depriving children of their rights to survival and development is not only violative of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, but also of successive directives of the Supreme Court to enhance their right to education. We request the NHRC to direct States to comply with these directives and not use population policies to deny these rights.

The 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments sought to strengthen and expand the base for India’s democratic governance by providing Constitutional recognition to local self-government bodies. The States’ legislations on Panchayati Raj providing disqualifications on the basis of the two-child norm, invariably cite the National Population Policy as the rationale for such restrictive and punitive measure for elected representatives of the Panchayats, when the National Population Policy does not provide such a norm. Moreover, similar disqualifications are absent for representatives elected to State Assemblies and Parliament. We request the NHRC to take cognisance of this violation of Constitutional rights, and direct States to strike down these provisions.

And finally we urge you to take necessary measures to ensure that steps proposed in the so-called “Strategy Paper” and the U.P.Population Control Bill that violate human rights are not now included in the population policy.

All India Democratic Women’s Association, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes, Delhi Science Forum, Forum for Creches and Child Care Services, Jagori, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, Joint Women’s Programme, Karnataka State Women’s Information Resource Centre, Mahila Sarvangeen Utkarsh Mandal, Medico Friends Circle, National Federation of Indian Women, Nirantar, Saheli, Sama, Young Women’s Christian Association of India