Indian girl Infanticide-Female Fetocide: 1 million girls killed before or after birth per year

Abortion, Female Infanticide, Foeticide, Son preference in India. India’s female to male ratio is 100 males to 93 females cmpared to a world average of 100 males to 105 females.

The main reason for the widespread female foeticide and the continuing prevalence of female infanticide in parts of India was the dowry system, which although long prohibited by law, continues to play a significant role in Indian society. Dowries and wedding expenses regularly run to more than a million rupees ($35,000) in a country where the average civil servant earns about 100,000 rupees ($3,500) a year. Added to this the low status of women in rural India, where they perform the menial tasks of the family such as carrying water and firewood and seeing to feeding the animals, and it is clear where the roots of the discrimination spring.

Sudra Holocaust: Genocide of 1 million Dalits in India since 1947: About three million Dalit women have been raped and around one million Dalits killed from the time of Independence. This is 25 times more than number of soldiers killed during the wars fought after independence. That is why Dalits do not need Aryan culture or Hindu Dharma based on caste any more. …” [Dr. Tulsiram]

The situation is even worse regarding educating these children. India, which is estimated to have some 432 million illiterate people, must give top priority to compulsory elementary education for social and economic growth to occur. 64 percent of Indian men are literate, but fewer than two out of five women can read and write. About 41 percent of Indian girls under the age of 14 do not attend school, said the report.

According to a recent United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) State of the World Population Report, these practices, combined with neglect, have resulted in at least 50 million “missing” girls in India.http://www.wunrn.com/news/2007/03_07/03_12_07/031707_female.pdf

Bharat is fast becoming the land of the boys. The infanticide of girls is changing the male female ratio and many males are without wives. Despitethe shortage of women the infanticide goes on. This is one of the many dozen stories that are available about the brutla practice of girl infanticide

“There is a little-known battle for survival going in some parts of the world. Those at risk are baby girls, and the casualties are in the millions each year. The weapons being used against them are prenatal sex selection, abortion and female infanticide – the systematic killing of girls soon after they are born.”

The imbalances are also giving rise to a commercial sex trade; the 2005 report states that up to 800,000 people being trafficked across borders each year, and as many as 80 percent are women and girls, most of whom are exploited.

According to a recent report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) up to 50 million girls and women are missing from India’ s population as a result of systematic gender discrimination in India. In most countries in the world, there are approximately 105 female births for every 100 males.

Female infanticide has been practised in India for thousands of years, but with the increased availability of modern sex determination techniques such as amniocentesis, ultrasound and trans-vaginal probes, sex-selective abortion has become common in most of India’s big cities.

In 1990, there were 25 million more males than females in India and by 2001 the gender gap had risen to 35 million. Experts now estimate that it may reach 50 million.

In India, there are less than 93 women for every 100 men in the population. The accepted reason for such a disparity is the practice of female infanticide in India, prompted by the existence of a dowry system which requires the family to pay out a great deal of money when a female child is married. For a poor family, the birth of a girl child can signal the beginning of financial ruin and extreme hardship.

However this anti-female bias is by no means limited to poor families. Much of the discrimination is to do with cultural beliefs and social norms. These norms themselves must be challenged if this practice is to stop.

Diagnostic teams with ultrasound scanners which detect the sex of a child advertise with catchlines such as spend 600 rupees now and save 50,000 rupees later.

| PAKISTAN LEDGER | ???????? ????? | September 16, 2008 | Moin Ansari | ???? ??????? | | RUPEE NEWS | Moin Ansari | September 16, 2008 | ???? ??????? | ????? ????? |

The implication is that by avoiding a girl, a family will avoid paying a large dowry on the marriage of her daughter. According to UNICEF, the problem is getting worse as scientific methods of detecting the sex of a baby and of performing abortions are improving.

These methods are becoming increasing available in rural areas of India, fuelling fears that the trend towards the abortion of female foetuses is on the increase

from the February 09, 2005 edition More than a million girls are killed at birth or aborted

In some parts of the country, bias against baby girls remains ingrained despite efforts to counter such attitudes. The practice of sex-selective abortion has exacerbated India’s gender imbalance. RAJESH KUMAR SINGH/AP/FILE

For India’s daughters, a dark birth day
Infanticide and sex-selective abortion yield a more skewed gender ratio.

By Uma Girish | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

MADRAS, INDIA – The oleander plant yields a bright, pleasant flower, but also a milky sap that, if ingested, can be a deadly poison. It’s one of the methods families use to kill newborn girls in the Salem District of Tamil Nadu, a part of India notorious for female infanticide.

Though the government has battled the practice for decades, India’s gender imbalance has worsened in recent years. Any progress toward halting infanticide, it seems, has been offset by a rise in sex-selective abortions. Too many couples – aided by medical technology, unethical doctors, and weak enforcement of laws banning abortion on the basis of gender – are electing to end a pregnancy if the fetus is female.

Asia’s Male Tilt

‘It’s a boy’ is still what parents hope to hear

The vanishing girls of India

The consequence of female infanticide and, more recently, abortion is India’s awkwardly skewed gender ratio, among the most imbalanced in the world. The ratio among children up to the age of 6 was 962 girls per 1,000 boys in 1981, but 20 years later the inequity was actually worse: 927 girls per 1,000 boys.

Infanticide is illegal in India (though never prosecuted), and laws are also in place to stop sex- selective abortions. But in some places, national rules don’t hold enough sway to overcome local religious and social customs – which remain biased in favor of sons over daughters.

“Factors like dowry, imbalance in the employment sector whereby the male is seen as breadwinner, and societal pressure to abort female fetuses conspire to increase the antigirl bias,” says Ajay K. Tripathi of the Advanced Studies in Public Health Programme, of the Institute of Health Systems in Hyderabad. Government and the medical profession, he says, need to put more resources – and more political will – into strengthening and enforcing the laws.

A case in point is legislation – introduced last year but now stalled – that would prohibit all genetic-counseling facilities, clinics, and labs from divulging the sex of the fetus. The hope is that if parents don’t know “it’s a girl,” fewer will resort to abortion. But the proposal, which would amend a 1994 law, is opposed by medical groups. They argue that technology used to monitor fetal health – such as ultrasound scans and amniocentesis – cannot be put under such intense scrutiny.

Others, though, see another reason for the opposition: Abortion is a lucrative business that many doctors do not want to see curtailed. “Abortions are a low-risk, high-profit business. As a specialist in fetal medicine, I can tell you that no pregnant woman would suffer if the ultrasound test were banned,” says Puneet Bedi, a gynecologist at Apollo Hospitals in New Delhi. “Right now, it is used to save 1 out of 20,000 fetuses and kill 20 out of every 100 because [it reveals that the baby] is the wrong gender.”

India stipulates that only a government hospital, registered facility, or medical practitioner with appropriate qualifications may perform an abortion. The reality, however, is that only about 15 percent of all abortions take place under such circumstances, according to the Indian Medical Association. About 11.2 million illegal abortions are performed each year off the record. Such abortions are often “female feticide,” experts say.

In Salem district, for instance, signs posted in towns reinforce the societal message: “Pay 500 rupees and save 50,000 rupees later,” a suggestion that aborting a female fetus now could save a fortune in wedding expenses in the future.

Salem district, a mostly rural part of Tamil Nadu, has a longstanding reputation as a deathtrap for baby girls. The Vellala Gounder community, the dominant caste there, owns most of the land and is intent on retaining property rights within the family. Sons represent lineage; daughters marry and relocate to their husbands’ homes. As a result, local women, like Lakshmi, who gave birth to a girl early last year, may refuse to nurse their newborns. They leave it to midwives or mothers-in-law to administer the oleander sap, say anti-infanticide activists.

Nearly 60 percent of girls born in Salem District are killed within three days of birth, according to the local social welfare department. That doesn’t count the growing number of abortions there to ensure a girl baby won’t be carried to term.

Amid such stubborn statistics, activists are at work to counter the forces of tradition. A focus of their work: improving the standing and self-image of women themselves.

Community Services Guild (CSG), a nongovernmental organization, works with rural women in particular to discourage female feticide. One of CSG’s interventions targets women who already have at least one girl. Now 20 years old, the program sends workers to visit these mothers, teaching them and their daughters skills that contribute income to their families (such as basket-weaving or selling produce) and reeducating them about the value of girls to society.

“Educating the new-generation girl – and empowering her with the skills necessary for economic independence – is the only long-term solution,” says G. Prasad, CSG deputy director. Though CSG works in a patriarchal culture where female inferiority is ingrained, the group encourages women to become decisionmakers.

In pockets of India where female infanticide persists, the practice is rooted in a complex mix of economic, social, and cultural factors. Parents’ preference for a boy derives from the widespread belief that a son lighting his parents’ funeral pyre will ensure that their souls ascend to heaven; that he will be a provider in their later years (India has no form of social security); and that he will preserve the family inheritance.

Conversely, a daughter is considered an economic burden. Pressure to conform can be intense in rural areas, and some families borrow heavily to pay for the rituals prescribed for a girl – the ear-piercing ceremony, wedding jewelry, dowry, and presents for the groom’s family on every Hindu festival.

The Tamil Nadu government has started several programs to protect girls – with mixed results. One urged families to hand over their baby girls to local officials, who saw that they were adopted by childless couples. Between May 2001 and January 2003, officials received 361 baby girls. An informal survey by CSG, however, found that many women would abort rather than have a baby and give her up for adoption.

Tamil Nadu’s “Girl Protection” program may be more practical. Here, the government opens a bank account in a girl’s name at her birth, depositing between 15,000 and 22,000 rupees during her childhood, depending on the number of girls in the family.

“The only way to wipe out this evil is by an attitudinal shift,” says CSG’s Mr. Prasad. “Educate a girl beyond eighth grade and encourage her to find her voice.”

http://www.reference.com/search?q=girl%20infanticide&r=d&db=web

END OF ARTICLE

APPENDIX

We produce a report by CONGO here that lists the issues.

A GIRL’S RIGHT TO LIVE

Female Foeticide and Girl Infanticide

Working Group on the Girl Child

NGO Committee on the Status of Women – Geneva

Conference of NGOs with Consultative Status with the United Nations (CONGO)

2

A GIRL’S RIGHT TO LIVE

Female Foeticide and Girl Infanticide

INTRODUCTION 4

I. MAGNITUDE 4

1. FEMALE FOETICIDE 5

2. GIRL INFANTICIDE

II. ROOT CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES 8

1. CULTURAL FACTORS 9

2.SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS10

3. CONSEQUENCES 11

III. POSITIVE INITIATIVES 12

1. INDIA12

2. CHINA14

3. OTHER COUNTRIES14

CONCLUSION 15

STATEMENT TO

REFERENCE TO MAJOR TREATIES AND OTHER DOCUMENTS

SUMMARY 20

ACTIONS / RECOMMENDATIONS 21

3

WORKING GROUP MEMBERS

Convener:

Brigitte Polonovski (ICW-CIF)

Members:

• Claire de Lavernette, recording Secretary (MMM)
• Ursula Barter-Hemmerich, Christel Behaghel (WUCWO)
• Afton Beutler, Kate Sonne, Emma Figures (WOW)
• Marie Boroli (WILPF)
• Paula Daeppen (FAWCO)
• Rama Enav, Sinaya Silberman (WIZO)
• Simone Ovart (ZI)
• Hillevi Perraudin (IFUW)
• Elly Pradervand (WWSF)
• Frederikke Qwarnstrom(MMM)
• Berhane RasWork (IAC)
• Sylvie Ravina (IFP)
• Clarissa Starey (PPSEA-WAI)
• For further information, you may contact:
• bpolonovski@hotmail.com
• claire.delavernette@wanadoo.fr
• sylviemr@tele2.ch
• marie.boroli@wilpf.ch

4

INTRODUCTION

The issue of girl infanticide, or the murder of children because they are female, is of growing concern in contemporary society worldwide. This violation of a girl’s basic right to life requires urgent attention and action. The following report, drafted by members of the Working Group on the Girl Child (part of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women in

Geneva), focuses on two main areas: the right to be born (female foeticide) and the right tolive (girl infanticide). The Working Group recognizes these two areas as being of particular importance in the education of the concerned societies. This report also identifies many of the root causes of girl infanticide in the private and public sphere of society, thus identifying specific actions to be taken.

The publication and presentation of this report is to coincide with the 51st

society, social entrepreneurs, other NGOs and the interfaith community to help them speak out against girl infanticide. Through this report, the Working Group also calls upon governments to get more involved in developing and promoting effective policies to bring an end to the girls’ human rights violation of girl infanticide, everywhere in the world.

I. MAGNITUDE

Girl children are undesirable in many regions of the world. In fact, due to the high occurrence of foeticides, infanticides, including newborn neglect and abandonment, the world is currently deprived of over 100 million women. China and India alone are responsible for 80million missing females. The first warning against this scourge was voiced in 1990 byAmartya Sen – an Indian 1998 Nobel Prize winner in Economy – though since that time the situation has worsened. Economic modernisation has exacerbated the phenomenon. Wealth and economic development do not reduce son preference according to Rohini Pande and

Anju Malhotra

1. Isabelle Attané2 further states that the economic and social liberalization of China has strengthened the traditional social power structure which is detrimental to women.The use of medical technology for sex selection and abortion has become a lucrative

1Son Preference and Daughter Neglect in India, International Center for Research on Women, 2006, 30th anniversary2 Isabelle Attané, L’Asie manque de Femmes, Le Monde Diplomatique, July 2006

5

business. Finally, the girl deficit is more common among educated women and wealthier families.

Female foeticide, the practice of sex-selective abortions, has taken over infanticide, the practice of killing children at birth. Female foeticide is now practiced in different parts of the world but is most prevalent in Southern Asia. This section of the report will consider the magnitude of the problem, the root causes and the consequences of all “missing girls”.

Finally, we will look at means of enforcing national laws and changing mentalities in order to reassess girls’ most basic human right – the right to life.

1. Female Foeticide

The biological norm for birth ratios is about 105 boys born for every 100 girls worldwide.

This norm has been drastically altered in some Asian countries such as China and India where the sex-ratio has been skewed since the mid-1980s. In China and India, an average of respectively 117 and 120 boys are born for every 100 girls. The birth ratio has reached 133boys born for every 100 girls in certain Chinese provinces as well as in New Delhi, UttarPradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Punjab and Haryana in India. These two countries are joined by, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Caucasus (Azerbaidjan, Georgia, Armenia) where female foeticide is also practiced. . Given that these countries account for nearly half of the world’s population (3 out of the world’s 6.5 billion inhabitants), the killing of girls in these countries means fewer wives and mothers for future generations and, as a result, a significant increase in the imbalance of the number of men and women in the world.

India

Female infanticide has been practised in India for thousands of years, but with the increased availability of modern sex determination techniques such as amniocentesis, ultrasound and trans-vaginal probes, sex-selective abortion has become common in most of India’s big cities.

In 1990, there were 25 million more males than females in India and by 2001 the gender gap had risen to 35 million. Experts now estimate that it may reach 50 million.

3 Isabelle Attané, Une Chine sans Femmes ?, Perrin, Paris 2005

6 Compared to 1991 when only two districts – Salem and Bhind – had an adverse female sex ratio, as many as 51 districts in India now have more male babies born compared to female,according to UNICEF.”In 80 per cent of districts in India, the situation is getting worse”.

4 According to the UNFPA 2003 statistics, there were 770 girls counted for every 1000 boys in the district of Haryana (one of India richest states), 814 girls in Ahmadabad (Gujarat), and 845 in South West Delhi.

According to the Christian Medical Association of India 5 in New Delhi when the third child coming after 2 previous girls is a female foetus, 70% of them are abortedleading to 219 girls for every 1000 boys born. When the first child born is a girl, the birth ratio becomes 558 girls born for every 1000 boys.

According to the British medical journal The Lancet (9 January 2006), over 10 million female foetuses (1 in every 25) have been aborted in India since 1994. The journal also reports that prenatal sex-selection in India causes the loss of 500,000 girls per year.

2. Social and Economic Factors

Among the factors which lead to a consideration of females as less valuable, the followingare of special importance:

-Inheritance:

- Furthermore women in many rural areas are economically reliant on men who are traditionally the breadwinners, custom which in turn impacts the imbalance in the employment sector.

- Having a boy allows the father to achieve better status in society, whereas having a babygirl is seen as a curse.

- Not only has the girl child been traditionally considered inferior to boys (she only does domestic chores) but also as a liability – a bride’s dowry can financially cripple a poor

family. Moreover, the dowry practice can deteriorate into a method of extorsion of wealth from the bride’s to the groom’s parents, leaving many daughters’ parents in debt.

-“Raising a daughter is like watering someone else’s field”: deep-rooted saying among rural people in China where elderly peasants traditionally can only depend on their sons.

Nevertheless, in the richest states like Haryana (India), sex-selective abortions are very common and also apply to well-educated women, for whom the girls’ deficit is even twice as high as for illiterate women. So, illiteracy and poverty are not the only factors, though we know that much can be achieved through education and improved living conditions. There is evidence that although the dowry was banned in India in 1961, and the caste tradition has been abolished, all these customs are deeply rooted in society and still prevail.

11

In some other areas of Asia, humiliation and even death are often the punishments for a mother who gives birth to a girl, because of the economic hardship and social stigma caused by a female child.

3. Consequences

Over the next 20 years, in parts of China and India there will be a 12 to 15 percent excess of young men leading to an obvious bride shortage: between 2015 and 2030 there will be 25 million men in China who have no hope of finding a wife

16.

This can give rise to:

- A substantial increase in aggressions and organized crime

- Rape and other forms of violence against women

- Drug and alcohol abuse

- Situation where all men of the family share the same wife.

- Women being viewed as commodities: for example kidnapping and trafficking of girls across borders.

(women from the outside) phenomenon: women are easily bought just like commodities with a price range between 50 and 900 dollars; the younger the girl, the higher the price.

According to UNIFEM, 45,000 “Paros” have been sold in and around Haryana (India) in

2006 alone.

UNICEF.17 has warned that “the alarming decline in the child sex-ratio is likely to result in more girls being married at a younger age, more girls dropping out of education, increased mortality as a result of early child bearing and an associate increase in acts of violence against girls and women such as rape, abduction, trafficking and forced polyandry”.

16 Isabelle Attané, op. cit.

17 UNICEF, 2007 op.cit.

12 In a near future, we could see what Amin Maalouf describes in his book

“Today the social flaw of the male cult could become collective suicide”. We would therefore witness the “auto-genocide of the misogynous populations”

18.

III. POSITIVE INITIATIVES

Results in some countries are encouraging:

1. India

In 1994, India not only banned the misuse of ultrasound and other medical techniques but also condemned sex determination as a criminal offence.

Nevertheless, foeticide is still practiced due to the enormous family and social pressures to produce males. Moreover, they have only bolstered patriarchal values further undermining the status of women:

- Private clinics still openly advertise the services of sex determination.

- Obstetricians invest in mobile clinics with ultrasound equipment that can be driven into remote rural areas where the preference for male offspring runs high.

- Kits from the U.S. are available that allow women to know the sex of their baby in the comfort of their home.

- Abortion is so lucrative that many doctors do not want to see it curtailed. As a result, 11.2 million illegal abortions are performed each year off-the-record.

- Medical groups also argue that technology used to monitor foetal health – such as ultrasound scans and amniocentesis – cannot be put under such intense scrutiny.

- Officials in India say that the phenomenon has become uncontrollable. The reason may alsobe that “it suits so many people.”

In the district of Salem (Tamil Nadu), government schemes suggest that parents should not kill their unwanted girls but abandon them in cradles where 621 babies were left in 2005.

Amin Maalouf, Le Premier siècle après Béatrice, Grasset, Paris, 1992

19 According to Rohini Mohan, CNN IBN 2006

13

But charities feel this encourages people to throw away babies. In fact, how can such a system that reinforces son preference continue to be promoted?

Many poor families with girls in India were given financial incentives in the name of the infant girls. But like the “cradle baby” scheme, “girl protection schemes” were more the result of political plotting and, therefore, were short-lived even though girl child lives were spared because of those measures

On a more positive note, the Indian State Chief Minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda declared 2006 the Year of the Girl Child. He introduced an innovative incentive program called “Ladli” or the “adored one”, carrying an incentive of Rs 5000 ($100) per year for five years on the birth of a second daughter in a family. If a family has one daughter or only daughters,the parents would be entitled to get old age allowance of Rs300 ($6) per month after the ageof 55. Financial perks are indeed alluring incentives

21.

Where NGOs accompany young mothers and their baby girls from birth to the age of 2 months, giving them food and support, mothers become attached to their daughters and insome places infanticide has decreased up to fifty percent within 10 years

22.

That is why organising “Support groups” with mothers from different backgrounds or ages (mothers in law, young brides, grand-mothers…) to discuss about the issue of the girl childappears to have a very positive impact.

However, the challenge remains:

Decades of policy efforts have not achieved positive change. In fact the worsening ratiosindicate that the situation is deteriorating rather than improving. Today, the focus of most

Indian government policies related to son preference has been on reducing sex-selective abortions, but with little or no result.

UNICEF

23 notes that while the pre-natal diagnostic testing legislation has been passed in

India, the enforcement is lagging with only one conviction to date.

20 Kirubhakaran, Social Welfare Program, 1993

21 Anuj Chopra, Gulf News, Weekend Review, 31 August 2006

22 Documentary broadcast on TV Channel ARTE: “La malédiction de naître fille” THEMA, 24 October 2006

23 UNICEF: op.ci

14 Female foeticide can be considered as a mass crime facilitated by the medical community.

Local initiatives by NGOs are to be encouraged as they do wonderful work on the ground and

have the ability to save many lives.

2. China

The program “Care for Girls” was launched by the State Population and Family PlanningCommission in 2003 in 24 pilot countries. This program provides social benefits, including cash payments, to families with only girls in order to enhance the status of girls and women.

Through such measures, some Chinese families have come out of poverty as they are entitled to accommodation and pensions when they get old. These families begin to feel more confident in the future and become less afraid of having girls 24 Kong Dehong, a 77thgeneration descendant of Confucius has recently declared: “In feudal society men were superior to women. I guess that is why women were not qualified to be included in the family tree. Our women are equal now. We have to adapt to the times.” So,there has been a change and we hope that this big step will have an effect on reducing the discrimination of the girl child

3. Other Countries

South Korea

Government policies in South Korea have also succeeded in reversing the trend quite rapidly.

From the mid-nineties, the government took measures to reverse this trend with positive results so that the girl vs. boy ratio is almost back to normal. There is evidence here that political will is of prime importance in achieving desired results. Enforcing laws and implementing policies are possible as long as all participants pursue the same objective 26 24

China promotes girls to avoid glut of bachelors, China Daily, 08 August 2006

25 Jane Macartney, The Times UK, 28 September 2006

26 Isabelle Attané, op.cit.

15 The Philippines

In the Philippines, an anti-child abuse, discrimination and exploitation division wasestablishe. A children’s training workshop on the girl child was also held which celebrated a week for the protection and fair gender treatment of the girl child.

CONCLUSION

The magnitude of the phenomena of female foeticide and girl infanticide in India, China and other parts of Asia has reached a critical level creating a worldwide demographic imbalance with, in turn, drastic economic and social consequences. Over 100 million women are now missing in Asia which will result in a 12 to 15 percent excess of young men in the nexttwenty years.

This report has argued that female foeticides or sex selective abortions, promoted by modernmedical techniques, have dramatically increased in the last ten years thus exacerbating thekilling of girls. Yet nothing can justify these killings.

As Swami Agnivesh, religious leader and social activist, said last year when talking aboutfoeticides: “There’s no other form of violence that’s more painful, more abhorrent, more shameful”.

Female foeticide not only denies the girl child her most basic human right – the right to be born – but it also turns women into silent victims. Scientific evidence has shown that mothers

who have been put under pressure to kill their baby girls remain deeply hurt and injured for the rest of their lives as they cannot forget their own offspring.

This report has mainly focused on two areas on the killing of girls but other practices leading to the death of the girl child need to be mentioned:

“Honour” killing, usually defined as an act of murder in which a woman or a girl is killed for her actual or perceived immoral behaviour, tends to affect a large number of countries due to

increasing migration. “Honour” killings are either decided and performed by the parents or relatives of the woman or girl or by the state as in the case of stoning. Such killings have

been reported inter alia in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Britain, Ecuador, Egypt, France,

27 Reported by Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) Project, 2004

16 India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, the Palestinian Territories, Sweden,

Switzerland, Turkey and Uganda.

Sexual abuse of girl children is also often fatal and takes many forms including rape and sexual exploitation including the phenomenon of snuff movies made possible through themisuse of new mediatechnologies. During war time rape is used as a weapon of war and as a way of durably humiliating the enemy, thus exacerbating violence. Contamination by HIVAIDS of young “virgins” as a way of purification of the man is also leading to the death of very young girls.

Additionally, female genital mutilation and early marriage with its consequences of exceedingly young childbearing are practices which result in medical complications and oftenlead to the early death of the girl child.

It will take generations to change people’s mindset but the situation worldwide is so dramatic that we cannot afford to wait any longer. It is imperative that the International community calls on the governments and all actors responsible for this human and demographic tragedy to enact laws and take urgent measures to fight these violence and discrimination which, bydenying the first basic right of all – the right to life – denies all other human rights.

28 Snuff movies are short films, generally of bad quality, showing a (supposedly) real murder, often preceded by pornography including women and child rape.

17 Statement to CSW 51

Working Group on the Girl Child

Of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women in Geneva

Written statement to the 51st

February-9 March 2007

Submitted and endorsed by the following NGOs:

Association Country Women of the World

European Federation of Women Active in the Home – Fédération Européenne des Femmes

Actives au Foyer

Federation of American Women’s Clubs Overseas

Femmes Africa Solidarité

Institute for Family Policy

Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices

International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics

International Council of Jewish Women

International Council of Women – Conseil International des Femmes

International Federation of University Women

International Inner Wheel

Pan Pacific and South East Asia Women’s Association International

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

Women’s International Zionist Organization

Women’s World Summit Foundation

World Movement of Mothers – Mouvement Mondial des Mères

World Union of Catholic Women’s Organization

Worldwide Organization for Women

We, the above named Non Governmental Organizations in consultative status with ECOSOC,

through this statement and our report on girl infanticide and female foeticide that will be

presented and distributed during the CSW in its 51

inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of the girl child. Despite the legal

human rights framework and namely the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), we

are deeply concerned with the phenomena of girl infanticide and female foeticide, which

deny the girl child the most basic human right, the right to be born. Not only has the status of

the girl child not improved but in many regions of the world, it has worsened and its future is

threatened.

Girl infanticide, which consists of killing a baby girl at or very soon after birth is a traditionalpractice most common in India and China, but also spreading to other parts of Asia.

Female foeticide is a modern version of infanticide which consists of killing a female foetus via sex-selective abortions. Female foeticide, which has rapidly increased over the last decade, is even more perverse than girl infanticide in that modern technology has made it easier, more silent and an industry has developed to promote it.

18

Both these practices are based on the traditional belief that a girl is less valuable than a boy, and therefore is not worth living. Mainly due to cultural, religious or social factors and practices, such as dowry requirements and inheritance laws, having a girl child is still considered a burden or a failure in many countries. There is no rational explanation for this phenomenon, given the knowledge that sex-selective abortions are even more common in wealthier and educated families.

The magnitude of this human rights violation is building to a worrisome demographic

imbalance with economical and social consequences worldwide:

- Killing of girls in the most populated countries means fewer wives and mothers and in turn,

fewer girls and mothers for future generations resulting into a greater imbalance in the

number of men and women in the world. Over 100 million women are missing, which will

result in a 12 to 15 per cent excess of young men in the next twenty years and therefore a

bride shortage. For example, between 2015 and 2030, 25 million Chinese will have no hope

of finding a wife

- Trafficking of girls and women across borders and within communities is developing at an alarmingly high speed. This only enhances the traditional power structure detrimental to women: becoming seen as a commodity and therefore holding less value. The “paros” phenomenon or the import of “women from the outside” sadly illustrates this situation as girls are easily bought- and the younger the girl, the higher the price.

- Forced marriages are increasing dramatically, in some cases forcing young women into marrying and belonging to several men at the same time.

The phenomena of girl infanticide and female foeticide are alarming and this is the reason why we are calling upon the UN Commission on the Status of Women, in its 51st session focusing on the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child to:

- Reaffirm the equal dignity of men and women, and especially the right to be born.

We also call upon the UN CSW to request political commitment from governments to:

- strengthen and implement laws against girl infanticide;

- amend laws that create and support the conditions where women are seen as a burden, such as inheritance laws and dowry requirements;

- create an environment favorable to girls, for example by giving allowances to families who

welcome girls;

- provide education on gender equality;

- support good local initiatives from NGOs which support families with girl children from

pregnancy onwards.

Madame Chair, nothing can justify the mass-killing, torture, ill-treatment or sale of girls. We

expect that at this UN CSW, a recommendation will be adopted to address this deplorable situation.

29

Le Monde Diplomatique, July 2006

19

Reference to Major Treaties and Other Documents

- Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), and its optional protocols (2000).

- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

(1979), and its optional protocol (1999).

- International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966).

- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).

- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995).

- “Beijing +5” Political Declaration and Outcome Document (2000) and all follow up,

including the CSW Special Session “Beijing +10” (2005).

- Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) (2000).

- Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

- Charter of the United Nations (1947).

20

Summary

Principal causes for female foeticide and girl infanticide

- Traditions:social pressure stronger than lawgirls considered as a useless economic burden
misunderstanding of the importance of the committed crime
non respect of women’s rights exclusion of women from their societies if traditions are not followed

superstition, religious beliefs- Illiteracy:
ignorance of the human body and the way it functions
ignorance of the laws in force
- Poverty<
Principal consequences of female foeticide and girl infanticide For women:
high risk of disease / malformation mental traumatism

of marriage in China, etc…); this creating, among other things, violence, alcoholism, theft, depression, drugs and rape. 21

Actions / Recommendations- make sure that:national governments implement international treaties;

local governments are aware of women’s and girls’ rights;co-operation and information-sharing within the NGO community are facilitated.
- draw the attention of professional bodies (doctors, lawyers, social workers, etc..) to
women and girls’ human rights and make them aware of equal rights between men and
women.
- urge heads of different religious communities in the world to contribute toward making
traditions evolve according to the Beijing Platform for Action.<
- support village (community) education committees with the help of specially trained
educators in girls’ rights.
- promote programs including “gender equality” for teachers training children and adults.
- educate men/women, boys/girls to have a better understanding of the specific needs or
situations of women and girls (health, nutrition, security, empowerment…).
- reinforce girls’ educational skills to empower them to become more self reliant and thus
less vulnerable to conditions which can lead to death.
- better support mothers through the establishment of feeding programs so girls can
flourish.
- urge governments to:

review and implement laws concerning sanctions for infanticide.
foresee special allowances in the case of female birth.  Without girls… no society Working Group on the Girl Child

Report published on the occasion of the

United Nations Commission on the Status of Women

51 Session – 26 February to 9 March 2007

Indian girl Infanticide-Female Fetocide: 1 million girls killed before or after birth per year