10 million girls killed by their parents in India
MrBrian
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By Palash Kumar Thu Dec 14, 1:57 PM ET
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Ten million girls have been killed by their parents in India in the past 20 years, either before they were born or immediately after, a government minister said on Thursday, describing it as a "national crisis".
A UNICEF report released this week said 7,000 fewer girls are born in the country every day than the global average would suggest, largely because female foetuses are aborted after sex determination tests but also through murder of new borns.
"It's shocking figures and we are in a national crisis if you ask me," Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury told Reuters.
Girls are seen as liabilities by many Indians, especially because of the banned but rampant practice of dowry, where the bride's parents pay cash and goods to the groom's family.
Men are also seen as bread-winners while social prejudices deny women opportunities for education and jobs.
"Today, we have the odd distinction of having lost 10 million girl children in the past 20 years," Chowdhury told a seminar in Delhi University.
"Who has killed these girl children? Their own parents."
In some states, the minister said, newborn girls have been killed by pouring sand or tobacco juice into their nostrils.
"The minute the child is born and she opens her mouth to cry, they put sand into her mouth and her nostrils so she chokes and dies," Chowdhury said, referring to cases in the western desert state of Rajasthan.
"They bury infants into pots alive and bury the pots. They put tobacco into her mouth. They hang them upside down like a bunch of flowers to dry," she said.
"We have more passion for tigers of this country. We have people fighting for stray dogs on the road. But you have a whole society that ruthlessly hunts down girl children."
According to the 2001 census, the national sex ratio was 933 girls to 1,000 boys, while in the worst-affected northern state of Punjab, it was 798 girls to 1,000 boys.
The ratio has fallen since 1991, due to the availability of ultrasound sex-determination tests.
Although these are illegal they are still widely available and often lead to abortion of girl foetuses.
Chowdhury said the fall in the number of females had cost one percent of India's GDP and created shortages of girls in some states like Haryana, where in one case four brothers had to marry one woman.
Economic empowerment of women was key to change, she said.
"Even today when you go to a temple, you are blessed with 'May you have many sons'," she said.
"The minute you empower them to earn more or equal (to men), social prejudices vanish."
The practice of killing the girl child is more prevalent among the educated, including in upmarket districts of New Delhi, making it more challenging for the government, the minister said.
"How do we tell educated people that you must not do it? And these are people who would visit all the female deities and pray for strength but don't hesitate to kill a girl child," she said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061214/india_nm/india280322
It's hard to read about things like this, it's sad to know that these things happen.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Ten million girls have been killed by their parents in India in the past 20 years, either before they were born or immediately after, a government minister said on Thursday, describing it as a "national crisis".
A UNICEF report released this week said 7,000 fewer girls are born in the country every day than the global average would suggest, largely because female foetuses are aborted after sex determination tests but also through murder of new borns.
"It's shocking figures and we are in a national crisis if you ask me," Minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhury told Reuters.
Girls are seen as liabilities by many Indians, especially because of the banned but rampant practice of dowry, where the bride's parents pay cash and goods to the groom's family.
Men are also seen as bread-winners while social prejudices deny women opportunities for education and jobs.
"Today, we have the odd distinction of having lost 10 million girl children in the past 20 years," Chowdhury told a seminar in Delhi University.
"Who has killed these girl children? Their own parents."
In some states, the minister said, newborn girls have been killed by pouring sand or tobacco juice into their nostrils.
"The minute the child is born and she opens her mouth to cry, they put sand into her mouth and her nostrils so she chokes and dies," Chowdhury said, referring to cases in the western desert state of Rajasthan.
"They bury infants into pots alive and bury the pots. They put tobacco into her mouth. They hang them upside down like a bunch of flowers to dry," she said.
"We have more passion for tigers of this country. We have people fighting for stray dogs on the road. But you have a whole society that ruthlessly hunts down girl children."
According to the 2001 census, the national sex ratio was 933 girls to 1,000 boys, while in the worst-affected northern state of Punjab, it was 798 girls to 1,000 boys.
The ratio has fallen since 1991, due to the availability of ultrasound sex-determination tests.
Although these are illegal they are still widely available and often lead to abortion of girl foetuses.
Chowdhury said the fall in the number of females had cost one percent of India's GDP and created shortages of girls in some states like Haryana, where in one case four brothers had to marry one woman.
Economic empowerment of women was key to change, she said.
"Even today when you go to a temple, you are blessed with 'May you have many sons'," she said.
"The minute you empower them to earn more or equal (to men), social prejudices vanish."
The practice of killing the girl child is more prevalent among the educated, including in upmarket districts of New Delhi, making it more challenging for the government, the minister said.
"How do we tell educated people that you must not do it? And these are people who would visit all the female deities and pray for strength but don't hesitate to kill a girl child," she said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061214/india_nm/india280322
It's hard to read about things like this, it's sad to know that these things happen.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
In fact, I'm not at all hesitant to criticize any culture, including our own, that sees any given group of people as less worthy of life than any other, or that treats it's people as members of a group rather than as individuals.
Given the little we know about the full story in India and how different people are valued and how their society works, I'm not prepared to adopt an ethnocentric point of view condemning them.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
I agree, basically. And I also understand how this will outrage and upset people at the same time. And that it's great to look into these issues and vent and figure out what we think and even consider what kinds of options there are. And then I get back to the ethnocentric view aspect. I also get concerned at the thought of anyone hinting at imposing our moral standards on others, as discerned by our sense of "right" and "wrong".
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
yeah, the horror of having to pay a few extra bucks in tax is so similar to the horror of burying a newborn child alive becos it's a girl. you're one sick son of a bitch.
What more do you need to know then the fact that they are suffocating there female newborns with sand or tobacco juice or even worse burying them alive?!?!? How would knowing additional details ever make this practice acceptable or to grant you a better understanding of how their society works? This is just fucked up and quite sickening.
"The leads are weak? Fuckin' leads are weak? You're Weak! I've Been in this business 15 years"
"What's your name?"
"FUCK YOU! THAT"S MY NAME!"
Where in the world would this practice of murdering a child because they are female be morally acceptable?!?!?
"The leads are weak? Fuckin' leads are weak? You're Weak! I've Been in this business 15 years"
"What's your name?"
"FUCK YOU! THAT"S MY NAME!"
India :cool:
----
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
Adopting an ethnocentric attitude and placing North American norms as the right ones means you fully back a society where men have a significantly shorter life expectancy than women, and subsequently their lives are valued less by North American standards. But then find a society that adopts this same thinking to women to be revolting. It's revolting all around.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
"The leads are weak? Fuckin' leads are weak? You're Weak! I've Been in this business 15 years"
"What's your name?"
"FUCK YOU! THAT"S MY NAME!"
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
not only india, but china as well.
maybe this will help, i don't know:
http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html
cross the river to the eastside
As for your tax analogy, all I will say is that people are not inherently rich or poor, in the way that they are male or female, or of one race or another. You can be rich one moment and poor the next ... your tax status is a circumstance, it is not who you ARE.
so you feel the same way then about the holocaust, right?
cross the river to the eastside
but do YOU find it reprehensible? is it acceptable behavior? should we allow it to happen becos it is their culture?
I find your behavior reprehensible most of the time. Apparently talking it out doesn't work, maybe I should amass an army.
where did i adopt an ethnocentric attitude or say NA norms are right? im just saying murdering babies is horrible and is not comparable to tax cuts in even the most remote philosophical stretch. hippiemom's post had nothing to do with taxation and while i see what you're trying to do, it's a weak argument.
but thanks for telling me i ought to go drink. im gonna go cry about it now.
the first thing i was going to post here was "that's a shame, indian girls are hot!" there's nothing wrong with me these days, im plenty happy and my sense of humor is still intact. i only took umbrage when i saw you trying to compare a human life to taxes. it's also why i leaped on ahnimus for saying women provoke their rapes. i understand what both of you are trying to do, but making excuses for horrific treatment of women is no way to bring about equality. the only diff between me now and me then is that im sickened by people who think they can treat other people as a means to an end.
Great points.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
good call. cos god knows you couldnt handle me yourself.