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Women’s rights key to saving baby girls

There are the moral and legal arguments in favour of human rights, which ought to be enough, but, let’s face it, sometimes it helps to come up with self-interested reasons for abusers to cease and desist and for governments to protect and promote. And in this geo-political clime, ‘national security’ is leverage par excellence. Here’s an interesting case for advancing women’s rights as a means of reducing terrorism.

The main right in question is the right to life. Australian psychologist Robin Grille documents a horrfying history of infanticide in ancient cultures around the world. It was common in Western societies for parents to kill some of their children until the 4th century. In almost all cultures, girls were more likely to suffer this fate.

In our generation, it’s still possible to find infanticide rates of up to 40% in certain patriarchal societies. Preferential treatment for boys leads to higher infant mortality for girls. Modern technology, where available, has made selective abortion another, more discreet alternative to outright murder. Some 80 million females are ‘missing’ in India and China alone.

An obvious consequence of the systematic killing of female babies, children and women is their under-representation in society. The natural balance is 104-106 boys to every 100 girls. In parts of China and India the gender ratio is predicted to reach 115 boys per 100 girls over the next 20 years.

So what’s the terrorism connection? Therese Hesketh of the Institute of Child Health at University College London and Zhu Wei Xing of China’s Zhejiang Normal University offer the example of China, where 94% of all unmarried people age 28 to 49 are male. Of them, 97% didn’t finish high school, with poor prospects of ever attracting a partner.

"The large cohorts of ‘surplus’ males now reaching adulthood are predominantly of low socioeconomic class, and concerns have been expressed that their lack of marriageability, and consequent marginalization in society, may lead to antisocial behaviour and violence, threatening societal stability and security."

Where young men with pent-up sexual energy congregate, they argue, "organized aggression is likely to increase substantially and this has worrying implications for organized crime and terrorism".

Hesketh and Xing’s recipe for reducing selective abortions includes promoting women’s human rights. A rights-based approach has already improved the gender balance in South Korea.

Mary Anne Warren argues that widespread selective abortion or infanticide constitute a form of genocide:

"gender roles have often had lethal consequences, and these are in important respects analogous to the lethal consequences of racial, religious and class prejudice."

Canadian NGO Gendercide Watch works to end sex-selective mass killings around the world, whether of females or males. The 1995 Srebrenica massacre, deemed an act of genocide, could also be seen as a case of ‘gendercide’ against men and boys.

Comments

  1. 8 September 2006 | 11:43 am

    […] There are only 88 males per 100 females in the 15-25 age bracket, a ratio similar to Cambodia after the fall of Pol Pot (but in contrast to parts of India and China where women and girls are under-represented). […]

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