Pre-natal sex selection has reached ‘worrying proportions’ in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, according to a PACE Committee

Strasbourg, 09.09.2011 – The Committee on Equal Opportunities of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) today warned that pre-natal sex selection has reached “worrying proportions” in several Council of Europe member states, in particular Albania, Armenia and Azerbaijan where the ratio is 112 boys for 100 girls, and in Georgia where the ratio is 111 boys for 100 girls.

In adopting a draft resolution based on the report by Doris Stump ( Switzerland , SOC), the Committee calls on these four countries to “investigate the causes and reasons behind skewed sex ratios at birth” and to step up their efforts to “raise the status of women in society”. Their governments should ensure the collection of reliable data on sex ratios at birth, including in different geographical areas within the same country and train medical staff about pre-natal sex selection.

The Committee believes that pre-natal sex selection should be resorted to only in order to avoid serious hereditary diseases linked to one sex, in the context of legal abortion or the use of assisted reproduction technologies. All Council of Europe member states should recommend that public hospitals instruct doctors “to withhold information about the sex of the foetus”.

The Assembly will vote on this draft resolution at its next plenary session (Strasbourg, 3-7 October 2011).