Killing Daughters: Over 100 Million Girls Destroyed Worldwide

You'd have to be living a very sheltered life to be unaware that in many parts of the world little girls are sacrificed in favour of boys. The economist.com reported in March 2010 that estimated numbers of girls aborted or killed after birth are very much higher than 100 million.

And the fatal preference for sons over daughters is increasing rather than abating. In many countries it's dictated partly by tradition: local or national 'culture'. It's often encouraged by the need for labourers in the family to help with farming, building or other heavy occupations. Laws may forbid daughters from inheriting and parents are unwilling to see their home or land pass into another family. Daughters may also enter their husband's family after marrying - you will only have someone to care for you in old age if you have a son to bring a wife into your family. Or perhaps daughters are a financial liability, with society demanding they each have a dowry.

In those circumstances, a prenatal scan is often seen as an investment. Once a female foetus is revealed, it can be aborted.

100 Million Girls Destroyed

As long ago as 1990, Indian economist Amartya Sen estimated 100 million girls had been destroyed - aborted, killed at birth or left to die of neglect. What the economist.com refers to as gendercide affects rich countries and poor, educated and illiterate, and Muslim, Hindu, Confucian and Christian populations. China, Taiwan, Singapore, former stalinist states in the Balkans and the Caucasus, and even sections of America's population (Chinese- and Japanese-Americans mainly) all have distorted son-daughter ratios.

Biology naturally produces more baby boys than girls - this offsets slightly higher mortality rates among baby boys. But in China and northern India, to take two examples, 124 boys are being born for every 100 girls, heavily skewing the natural balance.

Whether one is against abortion, for a woman's right to choose, or agrees with Bill Clinton's "safe, legal and rare" dictum, mass abortion as practised against girls in these countries has profound social consequences. China is heading for a society which will have as many unmarried young men - referred to as "bare branches" - as the entire population of young men in the US. In Asian countries, single men - remaining outside the accepted structures of marriage and family - are marginalised. As more and more young men find themselves outsiders in society, and alone, the imbalance between the sexes is leading to higher crime rates, bride-trafficking, sexual violence and increasing suicide rates.

The practice of destroying girls is increasing in the 21st century because of the convergence of several cultural, economic, political and technological factors. In many countries, old traditions still hold sway. Paradoxically, better education and earning power increase demand for smaller families. In China, the one-child policy adds a coercive factor. Lastly, prenatal scans allow couples to abort girls and try for boys. Far from being the sole preserve of uneducated people or the peasantry, the practice of aborting girls is widespread in richer, more 'cultivated' economies such as Singapore and Taiwan. in China and India, the communities with the most heavily skewed sex ratios are the richer, well-educated ones.

South Korea - Gender Balance Restored

Only South Korea has seen a reverse in the imbalance between sons and daughters. In the 1990s its gender imbalance was almost as serious as China's but is now minimal. There was no official or political attempt to discourage the destruction of daughters. Rather, access to education for girls, anti-discrimination cases and equal-rights laws put son preference in an old-fashioned, peculiar light. Couples' natural preferences for sons or daughters, or both, rather than just sons was restored.

The economist.com argues that the countries affected need to take urgent action to redress the growing gender imbalance. They advocate China abolishing the one-child policy but recognise that the leadership fears population growth and cares not a jot for couples' human rights. They also advocate countries raise the social "value" of girls: female education should be freely accessible, discriminatory inheritance laws should be abolished, hospitals producing unbalanced numbers of baby boys should be castigated, women should be welcomed into public life and work at every level.

All of which may be pretty wishful thinking. But the argument has to be pushed increasingly in local, national and international forums that whatever problems a country is seeking to address, destroying its daughters is not part of the solution.