WUNRN
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/14/opinion/littlejohn-gendercide-women/
Why Gendercide Is the Real 'War on Women'
By Reggie
Littlejohn - November 14, 2014
In China and multiple other countries, many women feel pressured to selectively abort their daughters because of the cultural preference for sons.
Editor's note: Reggie Littlejohn is president
and founder of Women's Rights Without Frontiers, an international advocacy
organization that opposes forced abortion and sexual slavery in China and
champions women's rights.
(CNN) -- Few issues divide people more sharply than abortion. So it is
great news when recently lawmakers across the political aisle in Britain voted
181 to 1 to ban sex-selective abortion. The overwhelming support for banning
abortion of a fetus based on its gender is progressive, moral and just.
But what about gendercide -- the practice of killing baby girls,
whether aborted or neglected after birth? Surely, there is no room for
disagreement on the need to end gendercide.
For every woman who freely chooses to abort a girl, there are
countless others who are being forced to do so because of strong cultural
preference for son.
Reggie
Littlejohn – Women’s Rights Without Frontiers
The sex-selective abortion of baby girls is not a pro-choice or a
pro-life issue. It is a human rights issue that must be approached as an area
of common ground. It is a woman's right to give birth to her daughter.
For most of us, hearing "it's a girl" during a pregnancy
ultrasound is cause for celebration. But in many countries, this phrase can be
a death sentence. In fact, the words, "it's a girl" are the deadliest
words on earth when heard during pregnancy. According to a U.N. estimate, up to 200 million women are missing in the
world today due to gendercide.
In China, the birth ratio of girls to boys is the most skewed in
the world -- approximately 100 girls born for every 118 boys. When couples are
restricted to one child, women often become the focus of intense pressure by
their husband and in-laws to give birth to a boy.
A woman need not be dragged out of her home and strapped down to a
table to be a victim of forced abortion. Crushing social, economic, political
and personal pressures in cultures with a strong son preference trample women
who are pregnant with a girl.
All too often, women in these cultures do not "choose"
their daughters for abortion. They are forced. The "Terracotta
Daughters" exhibit recently on view in New York City gave
dramatic visual form to the girls that have been lost to the world through
sex-selective abortion -- the haunting stares of an army of the dead.
Because of gendercide, there are an estimated 37 million more men
than women in China. As a result, the presence of "excess males" is
one of the driving forces behind human trafficking and sexual slavery,
not only in China but in surrounding nations as well.
Alarmingly, China also has the highest female suicide rate of any
country in the world. According to the U.S. State Department China Human Rights
Report, the number of female suicides has risen sharply in recent years, from 500
women per day to a staggering 590. I believe that this grim statistic may be in
some ways related to pressure on women to selectively abort or abandon their
daughters.
In India, the sex ratio at birth is 112 boys born for every 100 girls born.
Indian girls, moreover, die of disease and neglect at a much higher rate than
boys.
Impoverished women in India are often manipulated or pressured into sterilization,
which is one way of population control. There are even mass "sterilization
camps" where women sometimes die of complications. Just this week, in
Chhattisgarh, one of India's poorest areas, 11 out of 83
women who were sterilized died.
This is the true "war on women" on a global scale.
That one-third of the world's women -- those living in China and
India -- are deprived of their right to bear girls is the biggest women's
rights abuse on earth. These women deserve a passionate response from groups
that stand for women's rights. Yet the response of the U.S. women's rights
community has ranged from tepid to confused.
My organization, Women's Rights Without Frontiers, has launched
the "Save a Girl"
campaign in rural China, and we are stopping gendercide, one baby girl at a
time.
We have fieldworkers in China who reach out to women who have
learned that they are pregnant with or have just given birth to a girl, and are
being pressured to abort or abandon her. A fieldworker will visit that woman
and say, "Don't abort or abandon your baby just because she's a girl.
She's a precious daughter. We will give you a monthly stipend for a year to
help you support her."
The practical support we offer empowers these women to keep their
daughters. Our effort has helped more than 120 families keep their daughters.
We plan to launch a "Save a Girl" campaign in India in 2015 as well.
Every struggling mother in China and India deserves help to keep
her daughter. Together, we can end gendercide one girl at a time and sweep
sex-selective abortion into the dung-heap of history, where it belongs.