‘Families want a son at any cost’: the women forced to abort female foetuses in India

Laali and Meenakshi's unborn daughters are among the country's 46 million missing' women and girls over the past 50 years

Laali was alone at home when she realised her legs were drenched in blood. The bleeding did not stop for eight hours. As she fell unconscious, the 25-year-old thought she would die alongside the foetus she was losing.

She had been three months pregnant when she was taken for prenatal sex determination. When I learned it was a girl, I started feeling as though I was suffocating," she says.