• Neelam Rai

It is a well known saying that “charity begins at home.” Empowerment of women thus should begin at home. However, we cannot deny this fact that women are as insecure inside the house as they are outside it. In fact, she is subjected to heinous forms of crimes inside her household domain. One of the issues which deals with the deprivation of rights of women and which is a major obstacle in the empowerment of women is ‘female infanticide and foeticide.’ The practice of female infanticide and foeticide is a gross violation of human rights as it not only depicts the low status of women in the society and neglects the issues of gender discrimination which begins from the womb but also hits at women’s right over her motherhood. Female infanticide and foeticide is the beginning of the suffering of a woman in the course of her life, thus has a major impact upon the empowerment of women in the society. The present paper brings forth the international and national instruments against the practice of female infanticide and foeticide which is very important for emancipating women. How far these instruments have succeeded in curbing this social practice? What are the various policies introduced by the Government to curb this social practice? The role of the advanced technologies like “amniocentesis, ultra-sound scanning, in-vitro fertilization etc” in promoting female foeticide will also be the matter of concern of this paper. One more important aspect which is enjoined with the problem of female foeticide effecting the empowerment of women in the society is the question of “Abortion as the right of the mother vis-à-vis right of the foetus to be born alive.” This question is very vital for the purpose of women empowerment specifically in the gender preferred country like India. Hence, the proposed paper will be an effort to investigate all the issues mentioned above to sensitize and create awareness among all the legal aspects against this social practice. A since effort will also be there to suggest solutions to overcome this problem.

Female infanticide, Female Foeticide, amniocentesis, in-vitro fertilization

"Female Foeticide and its impact on women empowerment in india ", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 4, page no.117-127, April-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1904Q22.pdf

"Female Foeticide and its impact on women empowerment in india ", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 4, page no. pp117-127, April-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1904Q22.pdf