Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiHYDERABAD, India - Experts at the 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights are painting an apocalyptical vision of the Asian region where 163 million women are 'missing' and the sex ratio continues to decline as a result of easy access to modern gender selection techniques.
China tops the list of countries with a skewed sex ratio at birth (SRB) with just 100 females for every 120 males. India follows going by the country's 2001 census, which revealed that the SRB had fallen to 108 males per 100 females.
Experts worry that unless action is taken, Nepal and Vietnam may soon have skewed SRBs. Countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh are already beginning to follow Asia's largest countries with people resorting to medical technology to do away with the girl child at the foetal stage.
"We place it (skewed SRB) in the context of discrimination against women," said Purnima Mane, deputy executive director UNFPA, while addressing the press. "Women are not valued.'' She predicted that a continuing unhealthy SRB trend could lead to increased violence, migration and trafficking as well as greater pressures on women.
"When there is no economic recognition to women's work and no social value attached to this particular gender, when resource sharing remains inequitable, when women are paid less then it becomes easier to do away with this gender,'' said Renuka Chowdhry, India's junior minister for women and child development, at the inaugural of the Oct 29-31 conference.
She called for increased women's political participation and a push for laws and legislations that empower them as remedy to the adverse sex ratio. ''Don't mess with nature, otherwise it will lead to a mutation of society,'' she warned.
But where have all the girls gone? The sobering answer to the unbalanced SRB, according to the latest series of studies commissioned by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), lies in modern gender determination and selective abortions.
French demographer Christophe Guilmoto, author of the UNFPA's regional report 'Sex ratio Imbalance in Asia,' based on studies conducted in China, India, Nepal and Vietnam and presented at the conference, referred to it as 'gendercide' in which millions of parents resort to a variety of techniques to ensure male offspring. Choosing gender had become easy with the arrival of amniocentesis in the lae 1970s and later with ultrasound imaging technologies.
In 2005, the estimated overall sex ratio was 107.5 males per 100 females in India, as against 106.8 in China, 106.0 in Pakistan and 104.9 in Bangladesh -- four countries that accounted for 43 percent of the world's population in 2005.
The underlying reasons for the abnormal sex ratio in China, explained Baige Zhao, vice minister of that country's National Population and Family Planning Commission, included the age-old bias for sons, a poor social security system in rural areas and a trend for smaller-sized families.
The draconian one-child policy imposed by China's government at that time and the high cost of child rearing provided just the climate for abusing modern technology.
In India, discrimination against girls is more intense among urbanites and well-to-do families, while similar data from China indicate that sex selection appears more pronounced among peasants than among urban residents. In both India and China, education tends to be positively associated with discrimination against the girl child.
Perhaps that is why Gillian Greer, director-general at International Planned Parenthood Foundation, laid particular emphasis on "real investment in girls' education" as a critical driver of development if they are to be saved from becoming "invisible and forgotten''.
Interestingly Pakistan -- where abortion is illegal and unsafe abortions rampant -- does not yet have a sex selection problem. "The fewer studies that have been carried out all point to the fact that sex selective abortion is very rare. This could be because we have not been deluged by technology as in other countries in the region," explained Dr Yasmeen Sabeeh Qazi, country representative, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, Pakistan.
Pakistan also benefits from positive religious beliefs. ''One cannot ignore that such deeds (selective abortions) are considered sinful with great misfortune befalling those who commit such deeds. One of the commonest teachings of Prophet Mohammad, with which all Pakistanis are familiar, relates to not burying daughters alive (a practice in Arabia before the advent of Islam)."
The social ramifications of these private decisions will end up affecting everyone and a 'masculinisation' of Asia, predict specialists. There will be a vast army of surplus males causing a 'marriage squeeze' with the most underprivileged the worst off. With fewer women of marriageable age, men will have to delay marriage; it may also lead to a backlog of older unmarried men.
However, say experts, it is still not late to turn around the numbers. South Korea, after a period of 25-30 years, has brought back its SRB to normal levels through self-regulatory mechanisms and economic change. The South Korean government also contributed significantly to this.
The UNFPA study recommends keeping an eye on the private health sector which has played a major role in spreading gender selection technology, and a strict regulation of sex-determination procedures.
Many countries already have tight regulations. India started as early as 1983, followed by South Korea in 1987 and China in 1989. Nepal banned sex-selective abortions in 2002 when it liberalised its own law on abortions. But these laws have proved extremely difficult to enforce. India's Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technology Act of 1994 prohibited both the use and advertising of gender determination techniques, but remains largely ignored. Reducing sex-ratio imbalances is better achieved through advocacy, sensitisation and awareness-raising programmes says the UNFPA report. "By targeting special groups, such as health personnel, young women and students," people's mindsets and attitudes towards girls can be changed.''
"The role of girls and women (in society) needs to be applauded," suggested Guilmoto.
"Supporting girls or those families that only have girls can take many forms -- direct subsidies at the time of birth, various scholarship programmes, gender-based quotas or financial incentives aimed at improving their economic situation," UNFPA recommends in its report.
© 2007 Inter Press Service
15 Comments so far
Show AllNBC news aired a segment on the gender gap in China. Single Chinese women appear to be extremely happy with the discrepancy and the options opened up to them as a result. I have a hunch the disparity will even out over the next generation even if the government takes no action.
the funny thing is that there are a lot of lonely bachelors as a result. Men who desperately want someone to love and bear them (male) children are left tending their farms alone (and wanking their cranks). If you ask me they are reaping what their backwards culture has sown. The situation is rich with irony.
That's all the world needs:more males. "Then we can be sure that wars will be even more commonplace. Preference for males is an ignorant bias based on faulty religious and community teachings. It's incredulous that people would want more men who are the main instigators of brutality, war, crime, and oppressive governments. When you think the world people are becoming more rational with global comminications and learning, instead what you find is continued prejudice and discrimination toward women. What we need are more women and fewer men for more caring, nurturing, equality, and peace.
As a longtime supporter of equal rights, I have been appalled for decades by the preference many cultures (including ours) give to male children. What matters most are not people's X/Y chromosomes, but their wisdom and compassion. However, as some others have commented, a decreasing female population may have the positive effect of helping curb overpopulation.
Perhaps the time has come for those of us who elect NOT to reproduce to receive a tax credit. For many reasons, I knew I never wanted to be a biological parent before I was old enough to vote. Mainstream attitudes about having children sometimes astound me: I know people my age or younger who have/want two or more children; I once worked with someone approximately my age who wanted six. As if we needed more, this is proof that many people think only of themselves and their immediate wants, not the larger world and long-term consequences. . .including what sort of future their children will have. Overpopulation leads first to resource scarcity, then to aggressive, deliberate human destruction such as dubious wars (America) and government-approved murder of its own citizens (China's harvesting and for-profit sale of transplant organs from political prisoners).
http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-10-30/61329.html
I know the Chinese preference for male children is centuries old, but it is also connected to the PRC's lack of social-security benefits. A country that does not provide basic income security for its elders is not communist, only totalitarian. Similarly, a nation that calls itself a democratic republic, yet where "leaders" refuse to honor their constitution and the wishes of the public, should no longer call itself "America."
Important points raised in this article.
However, China's one-child policy WAS NOT and IS NOT (if still in effect) draconian, at all. Quite to the contrary, it is progressive, and should continue to be, in all countries, an effective way to control population.
The one-child policy essentially means that if a family has more than one child, they must pay extra taxes because of the social impact. This demands that people be more responsible for childbirth.
It's unfortunate and even morally revolting that undoubtedly women as a whole ARE abused and suppressed in a number of cultures, treated as second-class citizens, bullied and pushed around like mere possessions, sometimes literally beaten down. It is understandable that, where people have access to abortion, they may base their choice on gender, especially in mysogynistic cultures.
However, for all the foibles of Chinese Communism we can list on and on, the One-Child Policy was one of the most brilliant ideas, and it should be implemented in other countries, especially those with overpopulation problems. It does not stop people from having more than one child... it only imposes penalities for the purpose of badly-needed population control.
If worldwide birth rates had not been so high, fascist practitioners of genocide might not be doing what they are doing to kill people off in droves (such as in Africa now).... but NO, we had to have the Dinosaur Religions moralize on abortion ad nauseum while polluting education with superstitious garbage, including a plethora of mysogynistic fairy tales. Meanwhile, self-interested parents are more concerned about their benefit from 'owning' children as economic assets than about the wellbeing of the children themselves, and the society they will inherit.
More power to women! Whose sense of compassion and caring for others is socially reinforced most everywhere. We need such qualities in our leaders if our planet is going to survive the current wave of Prevailing Idiocy run by Rich Frat Boys with way too much money and power.
We are only seeing the results of the Bush-Reago-Thatcher crypto-fascist Pseudo-'revolution' of the 80s. Their so-called 'New World Order'. And it Stinks in the most Foul way.
"the answer to the problem is not Western moralizing but poverty relief. "
I agree with you there, with the exception that this is ONE answer of many needed in a complex situation. Poverty relief would eliminate many problems in the world including the proliferation of terrorism.
However, with the continued expansion of humans on the planet at the current rate, poverty is the one thing that will increase for everyone.
At the existing rate of human reproduction this won't matter anyway because by the time there is too many Asian men, the world's resources will have been exhausted and millions will be dying of thirst, famine and disease.
People should be educated to appreciate the contributions of women outside of childbirth and, to move from an atmosphere of discrimination against those who choose NO childbirth to one where the contributions of all are valued. In fact, it might be good worldwide to promote abstinence of childbirth as a viable and rewarding option.
after all, Bush will be moving to Paraguay after he has facillitated this nation's utter downfall....
I imagine mine will be a minority view, but I never found the one child per family Chinese rule "draconian"
in the least. If many people had an awareness of the centuries of famine that preceeded the modern age, they would understand that the policy was actually lax..... they will be unable to sustain those numbers there and are running out of space and fresh water almost as quickly as thay are adding to their population.
Perhaps The Resident of the Whitehouse knows a country the Chinese can "colonize" with their excessive numbers, I bet he has somewhere nice for them in mind, a place inhabited by people so easily led that they let HIM stay in office...
Well, if this trend continues, coupled with DU and a few other mutagenic things we are putting into the atmosphere, the water and the earth, perhaps we will take care of the problem all by ourselves. I'd hope it would happen without too much more destruction to the rest of the environment, but unfortunately, I doubt it.
Women have always provided the nurturing side of humanity and, in fact, that is true of most animals. If we get rid of of the female of the species, we can just about guarantee Hobbes' description of life. "Nasty, brutish, and short."
As Maurice Chevalier sang so many years ago, "Thank Heaven for little girls."
two rivers writes: "How do pro-choice feminists feel about this form of femicide?
What's more important: that a woman has a right to an
abortion, or that a female has a right to life?"
This is an extremely Western-centric view of the problem. It would make absolutely no sense to the cultures in question. The problem is poverty. When girls are looked upon as a drag on the family fortunes (such as they are), they will be eliminated. In sum, the answer to the problem is not Western moralizing but poverty relief. Then, women will have REAL choice -- including reproductive choice.
In a society which so vastly prefers and privileges men over women, women don't have the power to make that choice.
How do pro-choice feminists feel about this form of femicide?
What's more important: that a woman has a right to an
abortion, or that a female has a right to life?
Asia has lots of problems.
It is turning into a cess pool.
I concur with this article that value needs to be placed on work that has been a culturally imposed place of women for the last 6 thousand years.
Placing a monetary value on caring, curing, prevention, cleaning, maintaining, loving, sharing, spiritual (not religious) quest, nurturing, community and education is a necessary and possibly the first step.