Vietnam sees alarming rise in boy births

HANOI: For every 100 girls born to Vietnamese families, there are 112 boys born, a disparity in the sex ratio that has been rapidly increasing in recent years, an official said yesterday.

Duong Quoc Trong, deputy director general of the General Office for Population and Family Planning, blamed the rising imbalance on a cultural preference for boys who can "continue the bloodline". He added that the belief that boys can better care for parents as they age has exacerbated the use of abortions to select for sex.

In an effort to stop the practice, Vietnamese law has prohibited doctors from revealing a fetus's sex since 2003. But doctors commonly ignore the law.