The Other Holocaust

It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. Hillary Clinton


The Hidden Gendercide

100 Million Baby Girls “Missing”

The extermination of newborn baby girls on an unbelievable magnitude has been occurring over the last twenty years. Estimates from the UN indicate that 100-200 million children have died and still die simply because they were female. Several million girls every year are slaughtered AFTER birth.

Population Control

This is not about population control.  Only baby girls are being beaten and left to die in gutters and streets, or buried alive. This is not about abortion. It is about newborn girls. Another 100 million are believed to have been killed by sex-selected abortion.

If blacks were being systematically killed because they were black, gays because they were gay, or Germans because they were German, the news would be nonstop. Yet,compared to any other tragedy of this magnitude, there has been virtually no press in America on the issue.

A 2005 document at UNICEF

We are confronted by the slaughter of Eve, a systematic gendercide of tragic proportions.  While the facts are known and the figures easily available in United Nations and other dedicated publications, the issue has not sunk in and, consequently, it is not given remotely the attention it deserves.  

A sustained demographic “deficit” of 100-200 million women implies that each year 1.5-3 million girls and women are killed through gender related violence.  In comparison:  each year some 2.8 million people die of AIDS, 1.27 million of malaria.  Or, put in the most horrible terms, violence against women, causes every 2-4 years of a mountain of corpses equal to the Jewish Holocaust.

For each girl and woman killed by mankind, there are scores who are physically or psychologically wounded, if not maimed for life.

Source: Theodor H. Winkler, "Slaughtering Eve The Hidden Gendercide," Women in an Insecure World, Executive Summary, Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces, Geneva, 2005, pp. 1-3.

It is hard for us to comprehend how and why human beings kill their own babies, but in most of the world, girls are not welcome and are considered unlucky, a burden, something to dispose of in the trash.  Antiquated views about the superiority of boys have led to a culture of hate and violence for girls and women around the world. Men decide if a woman can give birth or not, whether she is a dishonorable wife or not.

 

Dowries

One of the reasons given for killing baby girls is that some say they cannot afford the astronomical dowries required to marry off daughters and daughters that are not married are a disgrace to the family.  If the dowry is not enough, she may be beaten and burned alive by the husband and his family. She might also be abandoned if they are kind, with only a severe beating, including bites to her face, blows to her body and attempts to dismantle any shred of self esteem she might have left
.

Unlucky

Others think it is bad luck to have a girl.  She will not become a breadwinner like a boy and thus will be nothing but an expense needing shoes, clothes, food and medical care.  Boys, it is believed, will support their parents in old age while a girl will be with her new family.

Some Girls Live

Many let the first girl live to keep the house, but she is often denied food, medical care and education. All resources are spent on the boys and the one girl will work like a slave to take care of everyone else.

Honor

They also will not put these babies up for adoption because she could grow up and bring shame on the family name.  Better to kill her so that the family honor is upheld. In China, girls are often referred to as “maggots in rice.”

Shortage of Women

The extermination has been so successful that there is a serious imbalance of males to females in China and India.  Instead of making women more valuable, men pool their money to buy one women and use her sexually and as a slave and then sell her again.

China and India have instituted some laws and policies to try to affect the issue, but not nearly enough. The practice is so widespread and accepted that lawyers, judges, and police officers refuse to enforce the laws.
 

Lack of Awareness

An attorney turned professor and poet, the last thing I wanted to do was take on another project.  I much prefer living quietly and writing poetry, while dreaming of a relaxing nonexistent retirement. However, these babies kept talking to me.  They came to me in my dreams. They haunted me night and day and I couldn’t turn away.  They can’t speak for themselves. I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. They are savagely beaten, as are the mothers, for the crime of being born female, or giving birth to a girl.

When I researched the issue, there was hardly any awareness at all in this country.  I could not find a charity addressing it.  I found one or two paragraph mentions of the issue in papers around the country and one CNN story. I found a wealth of documents and studies at the UN, quite a bit of coverage in India, some in China and one CNN Pakistan video. I found several BBC documentary videos and some from AlJazeera. In short, I learned that this is a real and extremely disturbing multifaceted issue and that there is hardly any press.

What Can We Do?

First, to learn more read the About Me tab and watch the BBC, CNN, AlJazeera and Indian television clips under the Video tab.  Read more under the Resources and Links tab.

The main thing we need to do right now is raise awareness about the issue.  We need to be clear about what is happening.  Baby girls are not just being killed, they are being tortured and thrown out alive to suffer and die alone in gutters, in rivers, in pots interred in the ground. Awareness can bring pressure on our own government to require that aid to these countries be matched with with polices and efforts that curb the practice and measurable results.

It's Not About a Lack of Money 

According to Indian experts, this epidemic started in the wealthy class, among multi-millionaires, no less. It is about the perceived worth of girls and their status.  It is about bullying women and babies. Sons and their mothers are the main culprits behind the desire to raise the status of the family by only giving birth to girls.

There are some in villages who claim the dowries are too exorbitant. There will come a time when we will need to money to address this issue through charities.  For now, we need to start with awareness and telling these countries that our aid is predicated on improvements in the human rights of baby girls.

All you need to do to help is talk about the issue, Tweet It, Share in Facebook and all our media.  Build a buzz.  Like my blog ( www.100milliongirls.blogspot.com ) and Like my Facebook page

( www.facebook.com/100milliongirls.com )  Follow me on Twitter @100milliongirls.

Press coverage and awareness around the world will change erroneous perceptions that girls are worth less than boys. Many of these women pregnant with girls are forced into abortions if they have girls, or worse, beaten and killed for giving birth to a female infant.  Birthing a girl brings “shame” to the husband’s family.  These women are left with no choice, let the husband or his mother kill the baby, or be killed.

We Can Change the World

Susan B. Anthony changed America by daring to vote and bringing attention to the inequality of women while being excoriated by the religious leaders in the press. Elizabeth Blackwell walked up a very long sidewalk to become the first woman in America to go to medical school as the male students lined up on either side and spat on her.

Baby girls lay writhing in ditches and gutters all over the world, beaten like a rat and left to die.  We can stop this!  We must stop this!

Join me in this fight!

www.100milliongirls.blogspot.com

@100milliongirls

You can read more about why I decided to get involved under the About Me Tab.
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