UN agency funds India-themed documentary

United Nations, Aug 14 (UNI) A new documentary, financed in part by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), will be broadcast, spotlighting the issue of 7,00,000 missing female children in India as a result of the apparent preference of Indians to have sons.

'No country for young girls', to be broadcast later this week on the BBC, explores issues such as illegal sex determination and consequent elimination, and its consequences in the years to come.

It portrays a young Indian woman who has to choose between staying with a husband who wants no daughters, or to make it on her own.

According to a series of studies commissioned by UNFPA last year, prenatal sex selection (preferring sons) in several Asian countries including India, China and Vietnam is likely to have severe social consequences.

The UN agency has been working to address the issue for many years.

The documentary is part of a nine-part series titled 'Life on the Edge' which examines the tough personal choices facing ordinary people as countries struggle to fulfill the Millennium Development Goals, the set of anti-poverty targets that world leaders have pledged to try to achieve by 2015.

''Films about developing countries often portray people as victims faced by terrible obstacles. In this series we show they're also people trying to make tough decisions that may change lives,'' says Steve Bradshaw, the editor of the series, in a UN statement released here yesterday.

''Each film is about ordinary people having to make extraordinary choices, tough economic, political and moral dilemmas. It's never clear to them what the right answer is, and yet the cumulative effect will affect whether the MDGs are achieved,'' the statement said, quoting him.

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