By Joe Drury

Jun. 1 – According to a recent government survey, an unprecedented 8.3 percent of girls between 13 and 15 years smoke or chew tobacco in India, an ominous sign for a nation with over a million tobacco-related deaths every year.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare teamed with the World Health Organization to conduct the first Global Youth Tobacco Survey, the results of which were released to coincide with ‘World No Tobacco Day’ on May 31.

The sale of tobacco to minors is banned in India, and social taboos prevent most women from smoking, but trends point to a large increase in female consumption of oral tobacco like gutka and paan masala.

Gutka, a mix of tobacco along with various spices and flavorings in a betel leaf pouch, can come in chocolate and mint flavors, and its packaging often features bright colors and cartoon characters.

Although there is a large gap between the amount of adult women and adult men who consume tobacco, the difference is much less pronounced in boys and girls. A Dec. 2009 study of 10 to 16 year old boys and girls at schools in Delhi and Chennai showed that 4.9 percent of girls and 6.5 percent of boys used tobacco regularly.

“While the prevalence in adult women is one-fifth of men, the differences were greatly reduced between young girls and boys,” said Monika Arora, the author of the study and senior director of an anti-tobacco NGO in a May 31 interview with the Hindustan Times.

“Chewing tobacco remained the most common form of tobacco used, with girls more vulnerable to advertising,” she added.

The government will release another survey later this month called the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, which further investigates socio-economic and regional elements of Indian tobacco consumption.

Early results show that in some states, up to 60 percent of women use smokeless tobacco.