Femicide

Asia missing 96 million women

ASIA is "missing" about 96 million women – the vast majority in China and India – who died from discriminatory healthcare and neglect or who were never born at all, the the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has estimated. In a report entitled Power, Voice and Rights: A Turning Point for Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific, released on 8th March 2010, it stated that female infanticide and sex-selective abortion have caused a severe gender imbalance in Asia, and the problem is worsening despite rapid economic growth in the region.

"The old mindset with its preference for male children has now combined with modern medical technology" that makes it easier to predict and abort unborn girls, said Anuradha Rajivan, the report’s lead author.

"It is not just female infanticide but sex-selective abortion of unborn girls that cause so-called ‘missing’ females," she said, contrasting the issue with recent improvements in female life expectancy and education.

The UNDP report found that East Asia had the world’s highest male-female sex ratio at birth, with 119 boys born for every 100 girls. This far exceeded the global world average of 107 boys for every 100 girls.

"Females cannot take survival for granted," it said. "Sex-selective abortion, infanticide, and death from health and nutritional neglect in Asia have left 96 million missing women... and the numbers seem to be increasing in absolute terms."

Read more on the report here

Boys considered more valuable 

It is no secret that many societies place a much higher value on male children than on female children. In China, baby boys are greeted as a "big happiness;" baby girls are a "small happiness." A traditional Hindu bridal blessing says "May you be the mother of a hundred sons." Indian parents blow horns, have big parties, and give the midwife a large tip if she delivers a boy. If she delivers a girl, she guiltily slinks out the back door. Robert Stone. Women Endangered Species in India. The Oregonian, March 14, 1989, page B7.

In China, India, and many other Eastern countries, there is far more emphasis on the extended family than there is in the West. It is natural for children to care for their parents when they are no longer able to care for themselves. Therefore, boys are seen as an asset because they guarantee that the parents will not become destitute or be abandoned in their old age. Boys are also able to labor in the fields if they stay with the family.

On the other hand, girls are considered liabilities because they require a dowry and then leave the family to care for their husbands and children. The prejudice against women in these societies is pervasive and extreme in many instances. Women must endure conditions unheard of in the West. The result of this attitude is quite predictable. In China, Korea, and India, the abortion of girls has exploded.

In 1985, the world sex-ratio average for newborns was 102.5 boys per 100 girls; in Korea it was 117 to 100. The situation in Korea became so intolerable that it is now illegal for doctors to reveal the gender of preborn babies to parents in that country. It is no coincidence that two of the world's leaders in abortion, China and India, also are in the forefront of committing and rationalizing femicide. In some areas of these countries, the average lifespan of newborn girls can be measured in minutes. As soon as their sex is known, they are drowned or strangled.

Femicide in China

The Chinese one-child program has inevitably led from abortion to female infanticide. Since boys are valued more than girls, female infanticide (femicide) is common in China. Even the March 3, 1983 People's Daily admitted that "The butchering, drowning, and leaving to die of female infants has become a grave social problem." This "problem" was widely reported in the American press as early as 1977. Jay Mathews. Chinese Said to Determine Sex of Foetus, Abort Females Washington Post, March 1, 1977

It is now not at all uncommon to find Chinese towns with populations of more than 10,000 persons where little girls are almost nonexistent. For example, Jin Mingai, Mayor of Daijiawan village, claimed that:

"There is no infanticide here. The peasants would never drown their own daughters." However, there are no girl children at all under the age of twelve in his village, which has a population of 7,500. Jin Mingai, mayor of Daijiawan village.
Quoted in Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times News Service. The Oregonian, 23/6/1991

China's newborn male-to-female sex ratio was about 1.085 in 1981, compared to the historical Chinese ratio of 1.06. This means that there was a 'shortfall' of 232,000 baby girls in 1981. The Chinese sex ratio climbed to 1.110 in 1983, for a 'shortfall' of 345,000 baby girls for the year. (Washington Post, 8/1/1985). In light of the fact that amniocentesis and other means of detecting foetal sex before birth are almost unknown outside the largest Chinese cities, it is obvious that the vast majority of these 'disappearing' girls are killed at birth, when their parents discover their sex.

The 1983 sex ratio remained about the same until 1987, and then rose to 1.125 in 1989 and dropped slightly to 1.113 by May of 1990. The Chinese census also revealed that the sex ratio for first children is about 1.060, and the sex ratio for second and later children is about 1.140. (China's Population Policy is Proving to Be Effective." Beijing Review (English Edition), 6-12/11/1989) This means that about 3.5 million baby girls were killed at birth due to their gender in the People's Republic of China in the last decade alone.

Kang Ling of the Secretariat of the All-China Women's Federation estimates that, by 2010, there will be 40 million males of marriageable age who will be unable to find wives as a direct result of this mass femicide. Beijing's China News Service has also announced that 93 percent of unmarried adults in Beijing (Peking) are men. Single men outnumber single women by a million in the 29 to 49 age group in Beijing alone. Men's prospects for marriage, of course, are even bleaker in the rural areas, where female infanticide is most prevalent.

Femicide in India

Girls are considered to be a burden in many areas of India for several reasons. They leave the home when they marry and their parents, when old, therefore have nobody to care for them. Girls also require a substantial dowry in order to be considered desirable for marriage. This is no mere anecdotal phenomenon restricted to just a few backwards, savage villages. In virtually every country of the world, women outlive men and outnumber men by about three percent.

Sex-selective abortion continues to kill almost 7,000 of India's unborn baby girls every day, an annual United Nations report on children said. ""Nationwide, 7000 fewer girls than expected are born each day, largely due to sex determination," said the report State of the World's Children 2007. "Since 1991, statistics reveal drastic declines in the number of girl children in the most prosperous states and districts--as much as 50-100 fewer girls per 1,000 boys than elsewhere."

The national average, at 927, is well below the normal worldwide average of 1,050 girls to every 1,000 boys. In the northern districts of the country, including the Punjab and Haryana states, fewer than 800 girls are born to every 1000 boys. Northern Punjab is one of the worst, with just 798 girls for every 1,000 boys under the age of six.

A report from 2005 found a worldwide gender imbalance of at least 200 million more males than females, caused by the abortion of female babies.

Cultural bias 

According to a 1990 UNICEF report, which almost certainly understates the magnitude of the slaughter, a minimum of 300,000 baby girls are killed annually by exposure or choking, the methods of "choice." In 2007, it was estimated that 10m female foetuses have been aborted since ultrasound scanning was first used 20 years ago. "600 rupees now, save 50,000 rupees later", is the slogan of diagnostic teams with ultrasound machines that predict the sex of the unborn child. 

Shushila Gopalan, a member of Parliament, stated that "We are living in a country with a strong sex bias against women. In Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan [states], baby girls continue to be killed after birth ... and now killing female fetuses has become big business."

This Indian cultural bias against girls appears not to be restricted to the subcontinent; at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, more than 90 percent of all pregnant Indian women give birth exclusively to boys. It is not clear what demographic or sociologic effects a preponderance of men will have on the Indian economy or society. The only certainty is that the divergence between the male and female populations will accelerate if trends and conditions remain as they are now in India.

Hospital mass grave found in India

It was reported in the Times (19 February 2007) that police in Central India have found 390 body parts from foetuses and newborn babies – thought to be unwanted girls – buried in the backyard of a Christian missionary hospital.  The discovery came almost two months after police found the remains of more than 20 women and children behind a house in an upmarket Delhi suburb.

The businessman who owns the house and his domestic servant have been arrested in that case and are reported to have confessed to raping and murdering the victims.

The businesman, Monindher Singh Pandher, who had no criminal record, is said to have connections with state police. Six police officers have been sacked, four senior officers suspended and the area police chief transferred for alleged criminal negligence in the case, amid complaints that they ignored reports of missing children.

The grisly find in Ratlam sparked rumours of a similar crime. However, police said it was more likely that the hospital had been illegaly performing abortions and trying to dispose of the evidence. "The question of female foeticide and infanticide is part of our investigation, as is illegal abortions," said Satish Saxena, the local police superintendent.