Baby girls are being 'converted' into boys in sex-change operations bought for thousands of pounds by parents deperate for a son.
Hundreds of girls - some as young as one - are having the procedure every year, it was claimed yesterday.
Wealthy parents in Delhi and Mumbai are flocking to the central city of Indore to pay £2,000 for children aged up to five to have surgery known as genitoplasty.
Some were said to have pressed for the operation despite warnings that the 'converted' boy would be infertile.
The procedure, normally used to corect a genital abnormality in fully grown patients, involves doctors building a penis using tissues 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'.
This report is from Metro newspaper, Tuesday, June 28, 2011.
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