WUNRN
INDIA - BABY GIRLS TURNED INTO
"BOYS" IN SEX SWAP OPERATIONS
Baby girls are being ‘converted’ into boys in sex-change
operations bought for thousands of pounds by parents desperate for a son.
Baby
girls are said to be undergoing the genitoplasty operation, with parents paying
as much as £2,000 (Picture: Alamy)
Hundreds of girls – some as young as one – are
having the procedure every year, it was claimed on Monday.
Wealthy parents in
Some were said to have pressed for the operation
despite warnings that the ‘converted’ boy would be infertile.
The procedure, normally used to correct a genital
abnormality in fully grown patients, involves doctors building a penis using
tissue from female organs before hormone drugs are administered. It has become
popular because Indian society places a strong value on producing a son and
heir. Sex determination tests during pregnancy are banned to stamp out the
practice of women aborting female foetuses after alarming falls in the ratio of
women to men.
Up to seven experts are believed to have each
turned between 200 and 300 girls into ‘boys’. Critics voiced their anger
yesterday after the ‘unprecedented’ trend was uncovered in a report by the
Hindustan Times.
Author Taslima Nasreen wrote on Twitter:
‘Shocking! Not only do people kill unborn girls, they turn girls into boys by
genitoplasty.’
Commentators say the system is unmonitored and
open to abuse and have called for new regulations after legal experts said it
was not against the law. ‘There has to be some guideline or law on how a child
who is barely old enough to talk can undergo a life-changing surgery at the
parents’ will,’ said Dr Anil Bhadoria, of the Indian Medical Association.
A parent whose child had genitoplasty aged two
said: ‘I think he would not be confused over his gender when he grows up and
can live a normal life as he would not have any memories of the surgery.’