After many frustrating years of political lobbying and advocacy work to get the US government to take a stand against the practice of Gendercide, this summer Chai Ling, founder of All Girls Allowed accomplished it!  Her organization got Congressional commitment through the signing of the “Declaration to End Gendercide”.  The document cites Arts. 2 & 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, hence condemning the systematic elimination of girls occurring in India and China.

Please join me in supporting the work “All Girls Allowed” is doing to address Gendercide by going to All Girls Allowed and get involved and/or contribute. 
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U.S. Takes Action Against 'Gendercide'

Kanya D'Almeida

WASHINGTON, Jun 1 (IPS) - Every year on Jun. 1, the People's Republic of China pulls out all the stops – hosting festivals, printing greeting cards and sponsoring public games and parades – in celebration of International Children's Day, a holiday widely acknowledged to have originated with the rise of communism and now observed primarily in communist or former communist countries.
This year, while Chinese schoolchildren were enjoying a day free of homework along with state-sponsored festivities, human rights activists, demographers and researchers gathered in Washington to denounce the dark side of China's attitude towards its young – the rise of "gendercide" thought to be associated with the One- Child Policy (OCP).

In one of the first major gestures of bipartisan collaboration all year, Republican and Democratic members of Congress came together Wednesday on Capitol Hill to sign the Declaration to End Gendercide, a document drafted by the fledgling non-profit All Girls Allowed that has grown rapidly into one of the leading organisations currently tackling human rights abuses in China.

Evoking articles two and three of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it "condemns the systematic elimination of girls occurring in India and China" and calls on families, communities and governments to educate, nurture and aggressively protect the lives of young girls the world over.

"We need to create a society where every child will be considered an asset, not a liability," T. Kumar, advocacy director for Asia and the Pacific at Amnesty International, stressed.

A former student leader of the Tiananmen Square youth movement and two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Chai Ling, founder of All Girls Allowed, said in reference to the reported wave of infanticide across China, "I knew I had to do something when I realised that a Tiananmen Square massacre is taking place in China every single day."

In the 30 years since China implemented the OCP, one million infants are abandoned annually and 35,000 government-enforced abortions are performed every year.

Zhang Yuhong, a victim of forced abortion, recounted her own personal story of becoming pregnant despite being implanted with an IUD against her own will after her first child was born.

Confronted by state forces, Yuhong and her husband were threatened with deprivation of food rations and a ban on their second child's education if they went ahead with the second birth. Under tremendous pressure, Yuhong finally had her pregnancy terminated in a government clinic with no anesthesia, and no compensation for her loss or her emotional trauma.

"That's why I'm here today," she said, "to urge the people of the world to come together to halt these inhuman policies happening in China."

Infanticide and Gender Imbalances

Nestled among tales of personal tragedy and pages of statistics relating to infanticide are clear patterns of gender imbalance.

Last January, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) predicted that by 2020, Chinese boys below the age of 19 would outnumber their female counterparts by 30-40 million – double the total young male population of Europe's three largest countries combined.

Such disparities lie far outside the boundaries of what nature would normally allow. Several months ago The Economist reported that since boys are slightly more likely to die in infancy than girls, biological adaptation compensates by ensuring more male births at an average ratio of 100:103 or at times 100:106 female to male births – a number that has held so steady for centuries that it is considered to be the natural order of things.

However, this pattern experienced a radical change over the past 25 years, and nowhere is evidence of the shift more prominent than in China. According to the British Medical Journal, the sex ratio for the generation of children born in China between the years 2000-2004 hit an unprecedented 100:124.

"This disproportion is out of sync with anything we've ever seen in history and is biologically impossible," Nicholas Eberstadt, a senior demographer at the American Enterprise Institute, told reporters Wednesday. "It is the combined result of the proliferation of inexpensive prenatal sex-determination technology and declining fertility."

Unlike many of those gathered on Capitol Hill, Eberstadt did not place blame exclusively on China's OCP, pointing out that systematic gendercide is scattered across the global map, with lopsided ratios tipping the gender scales in the Caucasus and Central Asia, as well as in parts of South Asia.

"This crisis is not specific to one law, one region or even one religion," he said.

"It occurs in societies that are Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu, Muslim and Christian. It even happens in the United States," he added, referring to the increasingly imbalanced sex ratio in the Asian American community, which increased from 100:106 in the mid 1970s to 100:109 in early 2002.

"Let's not tell ourselves that this can't happen here," Eberstadt warned, "because it already is."
The U.S. is well-placed to act nationally in order to have an impact on China in the international arena.

"We want the U.S. to lead by example," Ling told IPS. "We want this government to educate the world and act on behalf of girls everywhere. First there must be awareness on the issue – only then can we move forward."

THE WAR ON BABY GIRLS “Gendercide” Killed, aborted or neglected, at least 100m girls have disappeared—and the number is rising

IMAGINE you are one half of a young couple expecting your first child in a fast-growing, poor country. You are part of the new middle class; your income is rising; you want a small family. But traditional mores hold sway around you, most important in the preference for sons over daughters. Perhaps hard physical labour is still needed for the family to make its living. Perhaps only sons may inherit land. Perhaps a daughter is deemed to join another family on marriage and you want someone to care for you when you are old. Perhaps she needs a dowry.

Now imagine that you have had an ultrasound scan; it costs $12, but you can afford that. The scan says the unborn child is a girl. You yourself would prefer a boy; the rest of your family clamours for one. You would never dream of killing a baby daughter, as they do out in the villages. But an abortion seems different. What do you do?

For millions of couples, the answer is: abort the daughter, try for a son. In China and northern India more than 120 boys are being born for every 100 girls. Nature dictates that slightly more males are born than females to offset boys’ greater susceptibility to infant disease. But nothing on this scale.

For those who oppose abortion, this is mass murder. For those such as this newspaper, who think abortion should be “safe, legal and rare” (to use Bill Clinton’s phrase), a lot depends on the circumstances, but the cumulative consequence for societies of such individual actions is catastrophic. China alone stands to have as many unmarried young men—“bare branches”, as they are known—as the entire population of young men in America. In any country rootless young males spell trouble; in Asian societies, where marriage and children are the recognised routes into society, single men are almost like outlaws. Crime rates, bride trafficking, sexual violence, even female suicide rates are all rising and will rise further as the lopsided generations reach their maturity (see article).

It is no exaggeration to call this gendercide. Women are missing in their millions—aborted, killed, neglected to death. In 1990 an Indian economist, Amartya Sen, put the number at 100m; the toll is higher now. The crumb of comfort is that countries can mitigate the hurt, and that one, South Korea, has shown the worst can be avoided. Others need to learn from it if they are to stop the carnage.

The dearth and death of little sisters
Most people know China and northern India have unnaturally large numbers of boys. But few appreciate how bad the problem is, or that it is rising. In China the imbalance between the sexes was 108 boys to 100 girls for the generation born in the late 1980s; for the generation of the early 2000s, it was 124 to 100. In some Chinese provinces the ratio is an unprecedented 130 to 100. The destruction is worst in China but has spread far beyond. Other East Asian countries, including Taiwan and Singapore, former communist states in the western Balkans and the Caucasus, and even sections of America’s population (Chinese- and Japanese-Americans, for example): all these have distorted sex ratios. Gendercide exists on almost every continent. It affects rich and poor; educated and illiterate; Hindu, Muslim, Confucian and Christian alike.

Wealth does not stop it. Taiwan and Singapore have open, rich economies. Within China and India the areas with the worst sex ratios are the richest, best-educated ones. And China’s one-child policy can only be part of the problem, given that so many other countries are affected.

In fact the destruction of baby girls is a product of three forces: the ancient preference for sons; a modern desire for smaller families; and ultrasound scanning and other technologies that identify the sex of a fetus. In societies where four or six children were common, a boy would almost certainly come along eventually; son preference did not need to exist at the expense of daughters. But now couples want two children—or, as in China, are allowed only one—they will sacrifice unborn daughters to their pursuit of a son. That is why sex ratios are most distorted in the modern, open parts of China and India. It is also why ratios are more skewed after the first child: parents may accept a daughter first time round but will do anything to ensure their next—and probably last—child is a boy. The boy-girl ratio is above 200 for a third child in some places.

How to stop half the sky crashing down
Baby girls are thus victims of a malign combination of ancient prejudice and modern preferences for small families. Only one country has managed to change this pattern. In the 1990s South Korea had a sex ratio almost as skewed as China’s. Now, it is heading towards normality. It has achieved this not deliberately, but because the culture changed. Female education, anti-discrimination suits and equal-rights rulings made son preference seem old-fashioned and unnecessary. The forces of modernity first exacerbated prejudice—then overwhelmed it.

But this happened when South Korea was rich. If China or India—with incomes one-quarter and one-tenth Korea’s levels—wait until they are as wealthy, many generations will pass. To speed up change, they need to take actions that are in their own interests anyway. Most obviously China should scrap the one-child policy. The country’s leaders will resist this because they fear population growth; they also dismiss Western concerns about human rights. But the one-child limit is no longer needed to reduce fertility (if it ever was: other East Asian countries reduced the pressure on the population as much as China). And it massively distorts the country’s sex ratio, with devastating results. President Hu Jintao says that creating “a harmonious society” is his guiding principle; it cannot be achieved while a policy so profoundly perverts family life.

And all countries need to raise the value of girls. They should encourage female education; abolish laws and customs that prevent daughters inheriting property; make examples of hospitals and clinics with impossible sex ratios; get women engaged in public life—using everything from television newsreaders to women traffic police. Mao Zedong said “women hold up half the sky.” The world needs to do more to prevent a gendercide that will have the sky crashing down.

Update from our fellow Advocates at Amnesty “The Hornsey and Wood Green Amnesty Group” about Human Rights Prisoner Chen

EMAIL EXCHANGE:

Thank You Professor Markus, our group have adopted Chen as a POC and anticipate the date of release, whilst continuing to campaign for his medical treatment, and his family's wellbeing.
You may be interested in our new page on the website:

http://hornsey.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=2641

I'll be sure to keep you abreast of any developments,

William

On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 5:46 PM, Professor Markus Redding wrote:

Hi William,

Thank you for your recent update regarding Chen's release date. Many of my advocacy students have been building awareness about Chen and other political prisoners within/outside the Columbia University community; hence they will be encouraged about the news.

Thanks again - Markus

China's Stolen Children brings viewers face-to-face with a crisis brought on by the controversial one-child policy, implemented in 1979

It is this manifestation of the draconian population control program that prompted some daring filmmakers to travel incognito to China for the purpose of documenting the horror.

Check out HBO's film called "China's Stolen Children." Narrated by Ben Kingsley, it shows the nightmare of "the world's largest experiment in social engineering" through the eyes of several families caught in the middle of it.

It focuses on the plight of children sold out of fear of government punishment or stolen because of the nation's unnatural shortage of offspring.

Because of the Chinese government's obsession with being accepted as a member of the community of civilized nations, Beijing is portrayed as more interested in covering up the epidemic of child theft than in addressing the problem.

"Legal abortions are commonplace for Chinese families in the one-child era," explain the documentary makers. "Moreover, with ultrasound machines allowing parents to determine gender at 4-5 months, many first-time pregnancies are aborted if the fetus is female. This selective (and illegal) practice is the result of China's traditional preference for sons; here and in other Asian cultures, brides migrate to husbands' families, leaving their own parents to fend for themselves in old age. Because of this, parents covet male babies. In the one-child era, as many as 40 million baby girls have been selectively aborted – creating a gender gap that has left millions of men with little hope of finding wives. And while the black market for male children remains robust, there is a growing demand for girls as well."

"China's Stolen Children" is the 2008 BAFTA Award winner for best current affairs program. It is the directorial debut of Australian-born Jezza Neumann, who also shot and helped edit the film. It was produced by Kate Blewett and Brian Woods, who have co-directed and produced a number of projects over the years, including the Emmy® and Peabody Award-winning "The Dying Rooms" for Cinemax, which deals with the neglect of abandoned babies in Chinese orphanages.

I recommend viewing it. VIEW UK & International Documentary Films
"China's Stolen Children" TRAILER BELOW UNDER BLOGS "GENDERCIDE FILMS, ETC." SECTION.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE FILM GO TO: http://www.truevisiontv.com/china/index.htm

Hospital mass grave found as India cracks down on female infanticide

Jeremy Page in Delhi

Police in central India have found 390 body parts from foetuses and newborn babies — thought to be unwanted girls — buried in the backyard of a Christian missionary hospital.

Separately, the Government said that it was setting up a network of girls’ homes — dubbed the “cradle scheme” — in an effort to stop poor Indians from killing their daughters.

Both announcements threw a spotlight on female infanticide and foeticide in India, where an estimated ten million baby girls have been killed by their parents in the past twenty years.

Sex determination tests are illegal in India, but many parents — especially in rural areas — still bribe doctors to find out their child’s gender and to carry out an abortion if it is a girl.

Boys in India are traditionally regarded as future bread-winners whereas girls are considered a financial burden because their families must pay dowries to get them married.

Acting on a tip-off, police found the body parts on Saturday, some of them stuffed in plastic bags, buried behind the Mission Hospital in Ratlam, a town in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

They have seized hospital records, sent the body parts for forensic science tests and taken a hospital sweeper and two doctors into custody.

A group of angry neighbours attempted to gain entry to the hospital demanding that action be taken against senior managers but they were stopped by the police.

The discovery came almost two months after police found the remains of more than 20 women and children behind a house in an upmarket Delhi suburb.

The businessman who owns the house, and his domestic servant, have been arrested in that case and are reported to have confessed to raping and murdering the victims.

The businessman, Monindher Singh Pandher, who had no criminal record, is said to have links with state politicians.

Six police officers have been sacked, four senior officers suspended and the area police chief transferred for alleged criminal negligence in the case, amid complaints that they ignored reports of missing children.

The grisly find in Ratlam sparked rumours of a similar crime. However, police said it was more likely that the hospital had been illegally performing abortions and trying to dispose of the evidence.

“The question of female foeticide and infanticide is part of our investigation, as is illegal abortions,” said Satish Saxena, the local police superintendent.

Renuka Chowdhury, the Minister of State for Women and Child Development, called yesterday for emergency measures to stop female infanticide and foeticide.

Mrs Chowdhury said that emergency measures were necessary as evidence indicated that the practice of aborting or killing female children was spreading.

“It is a matter of international and national shame for us that India, with a growth of nine per cent, still kills its daughters,” she said.

The practice has also caused an alarming gender imbalance in India’s population, she said. The number of girls born per 1,000 boys born fell from 945 to 927 between 1991 and 2001, according to the latest Indian census figures. Many districts report as few as 800 girls for every 1,000 boys.

To try to correct the imbalance, Mrs Chowdhury said that the Government would adopt unwanted girls and raise them in a network of special homes.

“What we are saying to the people is have your children, don’t kill them. And if you don’t want a girl child, leave her to us,” she said.

The Government says that it is clamping down on doctors flouting the law that bans prenatal sex determination tests, and a national campaign with the slogan, “My strength, my Daughter”, was launched late last year to encourage more parents to protect their infant daughters.

However, social activists say that there are many loopholes which allow those who provide tests to remain free of presecution. Since the law was enacted only one doctor has been convicted of illegally aborting female foetuses.

Mrs Chowdhury did not say how much the scheme would cost but she said that money had been allocated in the next budget. The minister also said that she hoped the planned cradle centres would provide an opportunity for parents who had a change of heart to reclaim their children.

But activists said that the government proposal was absurd. They said that it would send the wrong message, and fail to reduce the number of abortions.

“Most of the girls are killed before birth, not after birth. So, where is the option of abandoning girls if they are not born at all?” said Sabu George, who has researched female foeticide for two decades.

He said that some girls abandoned under a similar scheme in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in the 1990s died at poorly staffed and supplied Government hospitals.

Toll of shame

50m: number of girls that Unicef estimates are ‘missing’ from Indian society

1.05: males to every female in India, reversing the world average

600: rupees now, save 50,000 rupees later” is the advertising slogan of diagnostic teams with ultrasound machines that predict the sex of the unborn child

£18,000: can be the price of a wedding and dowry. Girls are killed because of the financial burden they place on their families

9.6m: more boys aged between 0-14 than girls

1949: Year when Indian women were granted full suffrage

54: per cent turnout of women voters in 2004 election, 62 per cent among men

10m: number of female foetuses aborted since ultrasound scanning was first used 20 years ago

1994: Year when scanning to find out gender was made illegal. It is widely ignored

0: the number of cases that have come to court

24.9 median age for men and women

Sources: news agencies

FREE Human Rights Activist Chen Guangcheng

Chen Guangcheng is a blind activist in the People's Republic of China at the forefront of a growing civil rights movement who drew international attention to human rights issues in rural areas. Chen is currently serving an unmerited prison sentence of four years and three months after grossly unjust trials. He was sentenced for damaging property and blocking traffic, after he brought a class-action lawsuit against the local authorities in Linyi, Shandong province, for implementing a campaign of forced abortions and sterilizations, which allegedly affected thousands of local women.

Human rights advocates, including myself, believe Chen’s sentence is a politically motivated effort to prevent him from pursuing his peaceful human rights activities. Hence, we strongly advocate for his immediate and unconditional release from prison.
Catherine Baber, Deputy Asia Pacific Director at Amnesty International stated:

"We condemn utterly the sentence imposed on Chen Guangcheng and consider him a prisoner of conscience. Chen has been imprisoned solely because of his peaceful defence of human rights and he should be released immediately."

"The charges against Chen were politically motivated and the trial was grossly unfair from start to finish. Chen's lawyers were obstructed at every step of the way, from collecting evidence to representing him in court. By some accounts the trial lasted only two hours; and the courtroom was filled with official representatives preventing members of the public and most of Chen's relatives attending."

Chen was initially convicted in August 2006 during a swift two hour trial. Since his conviction, his defense attorney, supporters and even his family, have been subjected to harassment, beatings, and intimidation. He appealed his sentence, and to everyone’s astonishment the appeal court ordered a retrial. However, the retrial was unsuccessful because the appeal court refused to consider new evidence from key witnesses.

Chinese activists have expressed that the lengthy sentence reflected that officials are cracking down on human rights advocates who include a growing number of lawyers, academics and dissidents trying to expand citizens’ freedoms through litigation and internet campaigns for legal reform.

According to Chen’s wife, Yuan Weijing, Chen hasn’t eaten well for the past few months and has not received a decent meal since his transfer to the Linyi Prison. Chen also expressed that the prison applies a cruel system: where certain prisoners are empowered to governing other prisoners. Chen’s wife thinks he is being mistreated in prison and we are all very worried about his well-being. Time is of the essence, we most join together to advocate for his immediate release. Also we most continue to build awareness about the illegal practice of forced abortions and sterilizations against women being practiced in various regions of the world.

Petition:
Sign this petition http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/free-human-rights-activist-chen-guangcheng.html and take it upon yourself to learn, to discuss, and to advocate for what is right. Also build awareness about Chen’s unmerited imprisonment by purchasing a FREE CHEN t-shirt and items: http://www.cafepress.com/freechen

Resources for further advocacy and learning interest:
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Worldwide Appeal

CHINA: Prisoner of conscience sentenced
Please write Minister of Justice Aiying Wu Buzhang, to advocate for the calling for the immediate release of prisoner of conscience Chen Guangcheng.

Send letters to:
Minister of Justice Aiying Wu Buzhang
Sifabu
10 Chaoyangmen Nandajie
Chaoyangqu
Beijingshi 100020
China
Fax: +86 10 65292345
Email: minister@legalinfo.gov.cn or pfmaster@legalinfo.gov.cn (c/o Ministry of Communications)