JAIPUR: With panchayat and municipal elections drawing nearer, the demand for removal of the two-child norm has intensified. Civil rights activists claim that the two-child norm has given rise to female feticide and violates various other human rights.

The norm was analyzed by a large number of civil rights activists from within the state and outside during a strategy meeting held at the Indira Gandhi Panchayati Raj Sansthan in Jaipur on Sunday.

During the recent budget session of the assembly, senior BJP legislator Mohan Lal Gupta had raised the issue demanding that the government should do away with the two-child norm. He went on to claim that the two-child policy was one of the reasons for female infanticide in the state. Though Gupta found several supporters in the state, the government, however, ruled out any amendment saying such statements were their personal opinions.

The activists claimed that the two-child norm is a target-oriented family planning and population control policy. It advocates “penalizing” couples who have more than two children as it disqualifies men and women from contesting in panchayat level elections or get a job in government departments and ineligible for promotions. According to a government circular, a candidate having more than two children on or after June 2002 is ineligible for appointment in government services. Moreover, the circular also states that a person shall not be considered for promotion for five recruitment years from the date on which promotion becomes due, if he/she has more than two children.

The Centre for Health and Social Justice and the National Coordination Against Two-Child Norm programme officer Nibedita Phukan, who came from Delhi, said, “We held a strategy level meeting to develop a shared understanding of the two-child norm and coercive population control policies, to brainstorm on ways to work on an advocacy strategy in Rajasthan to remove the norm from government policies, to shortlist intervention towards the removal of two-child norm and to draw up a possible time line for advocacy.”

Pointing out the ill-effects of the policy, Rajasthan Bal Adhikar Samrakshan Sajha Abhiyan representative Vijay Goyal said, “In a gender discriminatory society, the two-child norm gives rise to female feticide.” He demanded withdrawal of the norm saying that it violates human rights.

Other participants presenting evidences from Himachal Pradesh said districts with the highest juvenile sex ratio have had highest disqualifications compared to districts with lowest sex ratio in terms of getting jobs or fighting for civic body elections. There are studies showing that there is adverse impact of the policy on the health and security of families, appointment and promotion of teachers and government employees and an increased likelihood by fathers to abandon their families as a means to be left undocumented in their career documents and to hide their children.

The activists further pointed out that protests from women’s movement, people’s health movement and civil society organizations resulted in withdrawal of the norm from Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh but Rajasthan still has the two-child norm. Incidentally, Rajasthan was also the first state to implement the policy. Members of the Women Association for Multifarious Activities (WAMA) also demanded that the norm should be deleted.