The news "it's a girl"
still unwelcome
Gender-Selective Abortions in Australia
This SBS investigation examined a deeply sensitive question: could a preference for sons within some communities be influencing the sex ratio of babies born in Australia?
Rather than treating gender-selective abortion as an issue occurring elsewhere, the investigation asked whether cultural pressures surrounding the birth of girls could persist after migration, and whether there was Australian evidence capable of testing that question.
The reporting combined personal testimony with original analysis of Australian population data. SBS commissioned data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics covering registered births between 2003 and 2013 and examining the birth countries of parents.
While Australia's overall ratio remained within the biological range identified by the United Nations, the data showed higher ratios of boys to girls among children whose parents were born in India and China. The ABS confirmed that the populations being examined were statistically significant.
The investigation then subjected those findings to scrutiny rather than presenting the numbers as proof. Demographers and other specialists were asked to interpret the data, with experts arguing that prenatal sex selection was a plausible explanation for the disparity. Medical practitioners offered different experiences from their own practices, including accounts of parents expressing pressure or a strong preference for sons, while another doctor cautioned against assuming that such preferences necessarily resulted in abortion.
That distinction is important. The investigation dealt with an extraordinarily sensitive intersection of gender, reproductive rights, migration, culture and discrimination, where simplistic conclusions could easily stigmatise entire communities. It explored evidence of a potentially serious practice while also recognising the dangers of generalisation and the difficulty of determining an individual woman's reasons for terminating a pregnancy.
The story is also an example of why culturally informed investigative journalism matters. Multicultural journalism is at its strongest when community knowledge is not confined to representation or cultural celebration, but becomes a source of questions, access and investigative insight, including the willingness to examine difficult practices and inequalities that may exist within communities themselves.
The investigation was developed as part of the five-year investigative journalism program I ran within SBS's Multilingual and Multicultural division. The program supported multilingual journalists to identify stories emerging from their own knowledge of communities and develop them through rigorous investigative methods (evidence, data, verification, expert scrutiny, source development and editorial challenge) for a broader Australian audience.
This investigation demonstrates the public-interest potential of that model particularly clearly: community knowledge identified the question; journalism tested it against evidence; and the resulting investigation brought an issue largely associated with overseas societies into an Australian policy and social context.
The report was produced by SBS journalist Pallavi Jain, with assistance from Nila Liu.
Watch the TV report and read the article, based on Jain's and Liu's investigation: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/could-gender-selective-abortions-be-happening-in-australia/titrb4ckz
The original investigation is not available at the moment on SBS platform.