Post Date: Wednesday, May 25, 2016
India’s southern states are often lauded for their relatively low Maternal Mortality Rates (MMR), even sex ratios, and reducing fertility rate. Tamil Nadu, with a population of 62.1 million people, has an MMR of 97, a sex ratio of 995 to 1,000, and fertility rate of 1.7 children per family. When compared to India’s average MMR of 210, sex ratio of 940, and fertility rate of 2.6, Tamil Nadu appears to have made immense progress. Unfortunately, these positive advancements shield the state from criticism and pushes for improvements in reproductive rights, maternal mortality, and improved health care.
In fact, a 2009 report by the Rural Women’s Social Education Centre (RUWSEC) found, “the single-minded focus that has helped the state achieve miracles in maternal health care may inadvertently have contributed to failure to adequately address other sexual and reproductive health needs of women…” Civil society organizations echoed these criticisms of Tamil Nadu’s reproductive health provisions at the June 2012 Family Planning Association of India’s national consultation on Family Planning. Activists at the meeting reported that service providers and policy makers in Tamil Nadu regard “family planning” as a population control measure and not as a strategy for ensuring women’s fundamental right to freely choose the number and spacing of their children.
This discrepancy is clear in the state’s approach to family planning. Although Tamil Nadu uses a “target-free” approach to family planning, public health officials employ “intensified interventions” in areas where they are unsatisfied with the fertility rate and the state has ensured NRHM funding for increased access to sterilization services. Women disproportionately bear the burden of these interventions aimed at reducing the fertility rate. From April 2011 to March 2012, 339,845 people underwent surgery for a permanent method of birth control (conventional vasectomy, no scalpel vasectomy, tubectomy, or laparoscopy) in Tamil Nadu. Glaringly, 99.5 % of sterilization acceptors were women; 303,087 women underwent tubectomies and 34,857 women had laparoscopies, whereas 1,878 men had non-scalpel vasectomies and 23 men had conventional vasectomies.
Litigation
- Presentations from the Two Day Webinar on Reproductive Rights on 23rd & 24th of May, 2020
- Patna High Court: Ration facility for all transgender persons
- Nikhil Datar vs. Union of India: A long drawn struggle
- Patna High Court gives favourable order in response to the PIL on water logging in the state
- Guwahati High Court delivers landmark judgement; Department of Health and Family Welfare to pay Twenty Five Lakh Rupees to Petitioner in Nagaland
Fact Finding
- Presentations from the Two Day Webinar on Reproductive Rights on 23rd & 24th of May, 2020
- Report on the State level Consultation in Arunachal Pradesh on 2nd & 3rd November, 2019
- Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights Dictionary
News
- Report of the two day webinar on ‘Access to Reproductive Justice’ on 23rd & 24th May, 2020
- Report of the National level consultation on Trans people and women’s issues- 28th & 29th December, 2019
- Nikhil Datar vs. Union of India: A long drawn struggle