New Delhi: Across India, cattle slaughter bans have led to violence and religious conflict—but these bans could have another, longer lasting effect: harming women’s health. More than 50% of Indian women suffer from iron-deficiency anaemia, which contributes significantly to deaths during birth and other health conditions. According to a new paper by Aparajita Dasgupta of Ashoka University and others, cattle-slaughter bans could be contributing to this crisis by making women more anaemic, even years after the bans were enforced.

The authors use data from the 2002 report of the National Commission on Cattle and state government legislation to construct a database of cattle-slaughter ban policies from 1950 to 2005. Combining this with health outcome data from the nationally representative nationally representative Demographic and Health Survey 2005-06, the authors find that girls from beef-eating communities (such as scheduled castes among Hindus and minority groups such as Muslims and Christians) exposed to cattle-slaughter bans in their year of birth have lower levels of haemoglobin and are up to 10% more likely to be anaemic in their prime reproductive ages between 15 and 35.

For these women, cattle-slaughter bans reduce consumption of beef, an important source of dietary iron, and they do not compensate enough for this through other sources of iron. Unsurprisingly, this effect is larger for women from poorer families.

However, the authors find that cattle-slaughter bans only hurt women and do not affect anaemia in men. They suggest that this could stem from a tradition prevalent in many Indian households where the women eat only after the men and, consequently, do not receive as much nutrition.

Also read: Do cattle slaughter bans during early life affect anaemia decades later?

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