Cultural pressure to give birth to sons is causing some pregnant Indian-born women living in Britain to return to India to abort their unwanted daughters, an investigation has found.

It reveals how “selective sex abortion”, a practice outlawed in India in the 1980s, is still widespread and being used by some women living in England and Wales.

Between 1990 and 2005 almost 1,500 fewer girls were born to Indian mothers in England and Wales than would have been expected for that group, researchers say. This represents one in ten girls “missing” from the birth statistics for Indian-born women having their third or fourth child. The findings will be revealed in a special radio programme to be broadcast on the BBC’s Asian Network digital radio station this evening.

One British-born mother, who has three daughters, tells the programme that she terminated a pregnancy intentionally last year. “Meena”, an office worker in her 30s, said that she had no difficulty in finding a gynaecologist in Delhi willing to do a scan to determine the sex of the baby, and then to perform the abortion.

“Me and my husband decided to go to India and try and find out what we were having and unfortunately it was another girl,” she said. “My husband and I thought the burden would probably be too much. So we decided to terminate.”

The programme also sent an undercover pregnant British-Indian woman to several top doctors in Delhi for a scan – three doctors agreed to it in the full knowledge that the woman would abort the child if it was a girl and that such scans are banned in India.

Sylvie Dubuc, a population expert at Oxford University, said that there was a shortfall of girls born to Indian women compared with what would be expected. “What I have found is that the proportion of boys over girls has increased over time . . . it’s increased in a way that’s not normal,” she said. “The most probable explanation seems to be sex-selective abortion by a minority of mothers born in India.”

Although women are guaranteed equality under Indian law, there remains a range of religious and cultural practices that relegate their status. The abuse of the dowry tradition – for the bride’s family to make substantial payments to the groom – has been cited as one of the main reasons for sex-selective abortions.

Ramesh Mehta, the president of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, said that such biases could also prevail in Britain.

“We are aware that it does go on in India,” he said. “We are surprised and shocked that it’s possibly happening in women who are living in this country of Indian origin. We think this is very unfortunate in this day and age – it’s frankly shocking.”

Dr Mehta said that it was “very hard” to say why this could happen. “It could be that the parents themselves feel the pressure to have sons, because of culture or background, rather than from family.”

- The full investigation can be heard on Asian Network Report: Britain’s Missing Girls on the BBC Asian Network at 6.30pm tonight.

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