A record number of baby girls are being aborted by Indian parents living in Britain because they prefer boys, a Mail on Sunday investigation can reveal.
Hundreds of pregnancies have been terminated on the basis of sex in the past four years – despite Government advice explicitly stating it is against the law.
Our probe shows that between 2021 and 2025, around 118 boys have been born to Indian mothers for every 100 girls, far higher than the national average of 105 boys born for every 100 girls.
Experts say the figures prove ‘sex-selective’ abortions are taking place on an unprecedented scale in the community, sparking fears Indian women are being coerced by their families to terminate their unborn daughters.
On Saturday night, Rani Bilkhu, founder of domestic abuse charity Jeena International, said: ‘The data shows how boys are being favoured more than girls.
‘This shows how community pressures – be it husbands or families, are leading women to abort girls.
‘Don’t forget, some women are also led to abort girls because they have been brought up to believe boys are better than girls, that boys carry the family name, and girls don’t. They feel they are worth more if they give birth to boys.’
She added: ‘I feel boys in the Indian community have the “prince syndrome.” They are better. This is actually not just an issue about abortion, it is about gender equality.’
A Right to Life spokesman said: ‘This latest data is deeply concerning. This is likely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to sex-selective abortions happening in the UK.
‘Because many minority communities in the UK have relatively small numbers of births, even proportionally high numbers of female baby girls having their lives ended by sex-selective abortion would not show up as a statistically significant distortion in the birth ratios for these communities.
‘So this data is very likely to underestimate the number of sex-selective abortions in the UK.’
According to data produced for the Mail on Sunday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), there was a huge imbalance in the ratio of the number of boys born compared to girls born by Indian mothers between the years 2021 to 2025.
The national average across all ethnicities sees around 105 boys born for every 100 girls each year, and the Government’s accepted upper limit of the boy to girl birth ratio stands at 107 males to 100 females.
Statisticians say that anything over the upper ratio of 107:100 suggests the use of sex-selective practices, including abortions or IVF procedures.
Figures show that birth ratios for Indian women’s first and second children are the same as the national average.
But in the financial year 2021/22, the birth ratio for third children born to Indian parents was 114:100, followed by a slight dip to 109:100 in the following year.
It rose dramatically in 2023/24 financial year to 118 boys compared to 100 girls, and stayed that way the following year.
Experts believe that Indian mothers, who may already have had two daughters, are aborting their third female child because they want a son.
The current birth ratio imbalance among Indian women is far higher than the previous four-year analysis conducted by the Department of Health over the years 2017 to 2021, which showed that within the Indian community there was an average birth ratio rate of 113 males to 100 females on the third child.
The DHSC’s analysis determined the 113:100 rate had likely equated to around 400 baby girls being terminated in that period.
Abortion of female foetuses is endemic in India, where in 2018, a government report estimated that 63 million women were missing from the country’s population because of terminations.
The ONS figures did not show any gender imbalances among Bangladeshi and Pakistani mothers, whose birth ratio was similar to the national average.
According to the Department of Health guidance, issued to all doctors in 2014: ‘Abortion on the grounds of gender alone is illegal. Gender is not itself a lawful ground under the Abortion Act.’
However concerns have been raised that proposals to decriminalise abortion via an amendment in the Crime and Policing Bill may open the door to a flood of more sex-selective terminations.
As a result, Conservative peer Baroness Eaton is seeking to amend the Bill to outlaw sex-selective abortion.
Last month, the MoS revealed how the UK’s biggest abortion charity, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), said on its website that it gender-based abortion was actually not illegal, as the law was ‘silent on the matter,’ causing a national outcry. The Government insisted sex-selective abortion is illegal, and said it had even issued clear guidance on the subject to all doctors in 2014.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social care said: ‘This Government’s position is unequivocal: sex-selective abortion is illegal in England and Wales and will not be tolerated. Sex is not a lawful ground for termination of pregnancy, and it is a criminal offence for any practitioner to carry out an abortion for that reason alone.
‘Anyone with evidence that this illegal practice is occurring must report it to the police immediately. We continue to work closely with providers to ensure that abortions are only performed in accordance with the strict legal grounds set out in the Abortion Act.’
