My thoughts on 9th May - Mother's Day

Every year 9th May the world celebrates Mother's day - a day that honors and celebrates Mother's across the world. But my thoughts go to those who became "nearly a mother" but were forced to abort their babies. Mothers whose babies are killed, because the ultrasound test  showed that the unborn child was a girl. Women are missing in millions either aborted, killed or simply neglected to death. This is the ugly face of Gendercide which has lead to the disappearance of nearly 100 million girls.

Gendercide exists across all continents and affects rich and the poor, educated and the illiterate equally. In India, it is widely estimated that nearly 50 million baby girls are missing. In Northern India there are nearly 120 boys born for every 100 girls. Nature dictates that more males are born than females as boys are more susceptible to infant disease than girls but the increasing scale of discrepancy - 929 females for every 1000 males alludes to strong interference in the natural birth rate. 


Advances in medicine have given increasingly sophisticated weapons in perpetuating Gendercide. Prenatal sex determination through cheaply available ultrasound technology and Amniocentesis results in female foetuses being aborted in large numbers across India. Sex determination is in fact a lucrative business. In China the aggressive measures put into place to control population including the "one child" policy has created a shocking imbalance in China's male and female population. The imbalance is so acute that a study says that nearly 111 million Chinese men will not be able to find a wife. Due to the one child policy many girl child remain unregistered and are often sent orphanages or put up for adoption.

Gendercide is a a result of complex collision between the traditional cultural mores which have lead to preference for boys and the modern desire to have small families. Gendercide reflects the low position of women in many societies and cultural mores like dowry makes a girl child perceived as a "burden" on the family. Cultural practices in most of India and China dictate that upon marriage girls leave their family and become part of husband's family. This leads to preference for boys so as to ensure that there is someone to look after them in their old age.

Cumulative consequences of individual actions will be borne by society as a whole. In the state of Haryana in India which suffers from skewed sex ratio, lonely bachelors unable to find wives are "importing" wives from other impoverished states within the country. China unmarried young men are known as "bare branches" and number nearly as many as the entire population of young men in America. Rootless young men lead to many problems - sexual violence, higher crime rates, kidnapping of women are all on the rise.

The Chinese proverb that "women hold up half the sky" remains an empty aspiration unless measures are taken to raise the value of girls across the world. In developed and developing countries huge gender gaps persist in eduction, opportunity to work, health, wages and political participation.The principle of equality between men and women needs to become real across all areas of life. Our news and media needs to help build a strong and urgent awareness among the general public on this issue. Governments need to strengthen  regulations with teeth to disallow sex identification for non-medical purposes and laws that punish female foeticide, abandonment and neglect of female children need to be strengthened.

So on this Mother's day May 9th 2010, I as a mother myself, as a daughter, as a sister resolve that through "100 Women Forum Asia" I will actively seek to build a forum with like-minded women and men who seek to create and are willing to give it their all to give every girl child every opportunity to blossom and grow in an equitable and balanced world.


Bibliography:
The Economist, March 6th-12th 2010, GENDERCIDE - What happened to 100 million baby girls?"
www.gendercide.org
The Economist, "Haryana's lonely bachelors"