Gendercide is a growing problem in South Asia that has had undeniable consequences for both families and society. The disproportionate birth and infant survival rate in India and Pakistan is undeniable at almost every age yet their comparative rivalry can blind them to solutions.
Shockingly in 2013 Pakistan lauded their ranking on the gender inequality index, by reporting theirs was better than India! (click here)
While Pakistan has at times bested India, it was only slightly better and they lost an valuable opportunity for sustained improvement.
Comparatively in 2016 Pakistan was ranked the second worst country for gender equality and and the worst in Asia. (click here)
The comfort they take in being better than their neighbour is also disturbing give events earlier this year.
After a graveyard was discovered in Karachi with 345 babies killed. Crimes of this nature horrify people in the West but the practice of killing babies and young girls is a widespread social malaise that leaches Indian and Pakistani society of valuable human potential. (click here) Moreover the targeting in particular of female gender children leaves both these countries with a deficit of marriageable woman helping exasperate an already horrifying rape culture. (click here)
Gruesome accounts of the violent lengths mothers and fathers will go to to eradicate a female child create an awful backdrop for the nation of Pakistan and India and illustrate the depravity that has consumed these societies due to misplaced religious and cultural zeal. The lack of morality in these nations is a permanent concern yet their respective governments illicit little passion to resolve the ongoing unhealthy attitudes to life and people.
In May 2018 on-line CNN article he extent of killings of Pakistani female gender babies was revealed after a graveyard in Karachi was uncovered, it read:
“Since the beginning of 2017 a total of 345 babies were found dead in Karachi with 99 per cent being girls, as parents still prefer boys in Pakistan.
“In Pakistan child infanticide is a criminal offence but police blame poverty and illiteracy for the continuing practice of girls being killed.” (click here)
One such killing of a 4 day old baby girl whose throat was cut with a knife before dumping her tiny body in a trash heap was reported April 2018 not long after the occurrence, but such acts of violence against girls are more often ignored. (click here)
But other parts of Asia, including India, admit the ignorance exasperating the problem is not necessarily tied to illiteracy but a systemic culture of gender discrimination that values male children over female ones.
Global Girl Power Foundation website describes one of the organizations objectives in the wider context of women’s basic human rights as being, “To create awareness of Female Feticide and infanticide to promote equality and end gender-based violence”. To learn more (click here). Considering the lack of will in the West to discuss abortion in any setting, this approach and openness by an organization which is wholly committed to the development and support of women is ground-breaking.
“It is a powerful thing to be a girl. It seems the world – even those who say they are supposedly for her – do everything to silence and maim her prospects. They are OK with her as long as she supports their questionable policies, but reproach her when she speaks her conscience. She is a life-giver and need not “take responsibility for society’s rejection of children” as one feminist writer said arguing a rationale for abortion. But she can take responsibility for life by extending her heart and creating room in the world for love. There is so much beauty and strength to lose by the devaluation of female children.”/KG
PHOTO CAPTION – sent to Wilson Ilford
Photo taken at a vigil for rape and murder victim Asifa Bano; a little girl from Kashimir India full of potential whose life and innocence was robbed from her, a participant at the event of which the majority of people in attendance were from South Asian descent held a sign depicting the problem of sex-selection abortion in India.
