The pressures on the brides to have a male child have weakened a little in the families. Women who have participated in social surveys, have answered that the surroundings puts more pressure on them than the family: this is why they give the preference to male children, inform the specialists of the “International Center for Human Development” who have conducted a survey in January of this year and found out that the deviation of boy or girl proportion has decreased.
If in 2011 the women participants of the survey mentioned that in their surroundings 60% gave preference to male children, in 2017 this index has dropped to 36,7%. That is, 36,7% has mentioned that their surroundings give preference to male children.
According to Armen Galstyan: “A pregnant woman takes a taxi when the driver asks the sex of the child and knows it is a girl, he says – well, it is fine, the next one will be a boy.”
Pursuant to the specialists of the NGO, the surveys have shown that in the families having up to 3 children, girl/boy child ratio amounts to 100 girls and 98 boys which means that those families have had girls until having a boy eventually.
As stated by the specialists of the NGO, the birth rate in Armenia continues to remain lower than 1,7: “In Armenia, the preference of a male child is conditioned not by not having a girl, but having a boy.”
As they informed, if back then people got rid of a female child by putting it on the pillow and suffocating after its birth, now they do an abortion.
Lusine BUDAGHYAN
