印度家长为女童变性引争议

　　Indian doctors have been accused of conducting sex change operations on young girls whose parents want son to improve the family's income prospects。

　　Madhya Pradesh state government is investigating claims that up to 300 girls were surgically turned into boys in one city after their parents paid about £2,000 each for the operations。

　　Women's and children's rights campaigners denounced the practice as a "social madness" that made a "mockery of women in India"。

　　India's gender balance has already been tilted in favour of boys by female foeticide – sex selection abortions - by families who fear the high marriage costs and dowries they may have to pay. There are now seven million more boys than girls aged under six in the country。

　　Campaigners said the use of surgery meant that girls were no longer safe even after birth。

　　The row emerged after newspapers disclosed children from throughout India were being operated on by doctors in Indore, Madhya Pradesh。

　　Doctors confronted in the investigation claimed that girls with genital

　　abnormalities were being sent to the city's clinics to be "surgically corrected" and that only children born with both male and female sexual characteristics were eligible for the procedure. But campaigners said the parents and doctors were misidentifying the children's conditions to turn girls into boys。

　　The surgery, known as genitoplasty, fashions a penis from female organs, with the child being injected with male hormones to create a boy。

　　Dr V P Goswami, the president of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics in Indore, described the disclosures as shocking and warned parents that the procedure would leave their child impotent and infertile in adulthood。

　　"Genitoplasty is possible on a normal baby of both the sexes but later on these organs will not grow with the hormonal influence and this will lead to their infertility as well as their impotency. It is shocking news and we will be looking into it and taking corrective measures," he said。

　　"Parents have to consider the social as well as the psychological impact of such procedures on the child."

　　为求子以使家庭收入更可观，印度一些父母要求医生对女童实施变性手术，而这些医生已遭到控诉。

　　印度中央邦政府正对这起指控进行调查，据称在印多尔市，有最多300名女童接受了外科变性手术，而他们的父母为每例手术支付了大约两千英镑。

　　妇女儿童权益运动人士谴责这种行为是“社会的疯狂”，而且使“印度女性遭到嘲笑”。

　　印度的性别比例早已失衡，男性数量多于女性。由于不少父母担心将来要为女儿支付高昂的结婚费用，以及添置嫁妆，不少女婴惨遭流产，也称为选择性堕胎。印度6岁以下的孩子中，男孩比女孩多出700万。

　　妇女儿童权益运动人士指出，变性手术意味着女孩即使在出生后也不安全。

　　据印度报纸披露，中央邦印多尔市的医生正给来自全印度的女孩做变性手术，这引发了人们的热议。

　　受调查的医生称，家长将生殖器畸形的孩子送到该市诊所进行“外科矫正”，只有生来就具备男女双性征的孩子才能进行手术。但妇女儿童权益运动人士指出，家长和医生错误地判断了孩子的状况，把女孩变性成男孩。

　　这种手术称为生殖器成形术，利用女性的性器官造出男性性器官，孩子还被注射雄性激素，变成男孩。

　　印多尔市印度儿科协会会长格斯瓦米医生称，这一真相让人震惊，提醒家长变性手术会导致孩子长大后性无能甚至不育。

　　他说：“生殖器成形术对男女双性的孩子来说是可行的，但之后，这些再造的性器官在生长过程中接受不到激素作用，这会导致不育以及性无能。这太令人震惊了，我们会调查这件事，并进行纠正。”

　　“家长必须考虑这种手术对孩子的社会和心理影响。”