As if sensing her father’s displeasure, the baby starts wailing softly. That’s it – he grabs her roughly, and before her mother can react, the baby is murdered. The only crime she had committed was that of being a girl.
Female infanticide is the deliberate killing of newborn female children or the termination of a female fetus through selective abortion. It is the intentional killing of girl child due to the preference for male babies and the inferior value and status of girls in the society.
Express Tribune reported in 2011 about Sana Siddiqui, who was Just 22 and was expecting her first child. Her ultrasound revealed a baby girl in the womb. After couple of minutes of the birth, the baby was wiped off the earth without a trace.
On December 6, 2010, the lifeless bodies of two newly born babies were found from the city’s garbage dumps. These bodies were then given their final bath at Edhi Centre before burial in Karachi, stated Express Tribune.
On January 14, 2014 Aljazeera America reported another case of female infanticide in Karachi (Haryana Colony), “Just 2 days after a mother gave birth her husband killed the child, their first, because she was a girl.”
The cases which have made headlines of Karachi in the past few months include the gang rape of five-year-old girl abandoned on a railway line, a baby girl thrown into a river by her father, an abandoned newborn discovered in a burning garbage dump, in-laws suffocated the baby girl with a pillow and much more on the same issue. The number of Pakistani children who have been murdered by cruel and insensitive people of the society has risen exponentially over the past five years. What’s even more troubling? The increasing numbers of deaths amongst infants are baby girls. The numb...
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...No’. Promotion of gender equality should be considered in light of Millennium Development Goal 8 which states, “Promote gender equality and empower women”
In conclusion, it is not easy to change the attitude towards female infanticide overnight. It is a major issue of our society which is influenced by numerous factors and is influencing many other. It can only be eradicate if we as individual take stand for that. Report wherever the practice is prevailing, spread the words for awareness, stop gender discrimination. Wipe off such evil practice before you have to wipe off your own female child. This is surely possible through knowledge, women empowerment and awareness in society and by collaborative work on policies and law with governmental organization. Just glance back, where would you come from if someone had killed your mother for the sake of female infanticide?
Pidd, H. 2013. Hamzah Khan: the harrowing story of an 'invisible' child. The Guardian. [Online]. 3 October. [Accessed 13 October 2013]. Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/oct/03/hamzah-khan-amanda-hutton-starving-death
In 1942 the German government created a law that “banned all birth…rendering abortions compulsory” which meant that they were targeting the Jewish women demographic. As described in Saidel’s book Sexual Violence Against Jewish Women in the Holocaust, “pregnancy was a death sentence…as women discovered to be pregnant were automatically sent to the gas chambers” which meant that women and sometimes doctors in the camps would perform abortions in order to save the mother as they believed that the lives of the children could not feasibly be saved. In the cases of pregnancy in concentration camps, Saidel appropriately calls the experience “childdeath” instead of childbirth” because many times the mothers would be forced to have abortions or would perform abortions on themselves in order to escape the frequent deaths of pregnant women. If these pregnancies came to term, it would often have irreparable consequences. It would often result in the direct murder of both the mother and the child, as they would kill them together in gas chambers, but also there were reports of “women who gave birth were forced to witness their infants being smothered or drowned” which was yet another psychological and physical torment on women. Women’s experiences of pregnancy and abortion in camps is something that is often excluded from the
Sex-selective abortion is the practice of terminating a pregnancy based on the predicted sex of the fetus. The selective abortion of female fetuses is most common in areas where cultural norms value male children over female children, especially in parts of Taiwan, Korea, China, and India. A 2005 study estimated that over 90 million females were "missing" from the expected population in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan, South Korea and Taiwan alone, and suggested that sex-selective abortion plays a role in this deficit. India eliminates over half a million healthy girl fetuses annually, simply because of their gender.
The country of Pakistan has not always oppressed women. The former man in charge of Pakistan professed, “No struggle can ever succeed without women participating side by side with men. There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a third power stronger than both, that of women (Lamb and Yousafzai 31).” It was not until a general named Zia ul-Haq threw a coup and seized control of the government that women and men’s rights became incomparable under Islamic Law. Zia’s regime did not allow women to play most sports, have access to healthcare, or open a bank account, and, in...
Infanticide is a way to alter the reproductive stream before the child has the status of a real person, which is culturally defined (source). The deaths of weak, illegitimate, excess, deformed and unwanted infants are not defined as murder when the infants have not yet been born into the social world. Infanticide occurs cross-culturally for a multitude of causes. The reasons for infanticide can be summed up into three categories: biological (including the health of the child and twin stigmas), economical (relation to other children, women's workload, and available resources) and cultural (preferred gender, illegitimate children). This essay will examine cross-culturally the biological, economic and cultural factors for infanticide.
In recent years, Afghanistan, a developing country located in South Asia, has been the country with the highest infant mortality rate, estimated at approximately 110 deaths per 1,000 live births. In addition, Afghanistan has the lowest life expectancy in the world at fifty years of age and an alarming high rate of maternal mortality. As a developing country overwhelmed by war, Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous places to be an expecting mother. Although the death rates of infants have declined, there is still worry that it will only increase again once the
Abortion is a sensitive topic globally, culturally, and socially. There’s more than forty percent of women that end their pregnancy by abortion. In every nation of the world a woman makes the choice for an abortion. Abortion is a procedure that allows a woman to end the life from her pregnancy. There was a time when unsafe abortion was one of the many causes of maternal death. Unsafe abortion went down over the last two decades. When abortion became legal the tragic health issues for women reduced as well as death. There are thirty-six countries willing to allow a woman 's abortion if the female 's life is threatened. Those few countries make the exception depending on her situation of rape, incest, and fetal damage. Now abortion is known as a safe and legal way for a woman to end an unwanted pregnancy. In a woman’s first trimester
Rape is among the more horrific violations of human dignity imaginable. It is a crime committed by the male, not the female—and certainly not by the child it might produce. When rape results in pregnancy, the baby has the same right to life as any child born by mutually loving parents. Only the Nazis would execute a child for the crimes of his or her father.
There are many limitations valued when it comes to the right of abortion. The news media still outlines the pros and cons of anti-abortion rights in certain-states-to soon, the entire country. My perspectives on the issue of abortion have been entitled from it to never be banned among citizen’s rights. The reproduction of pregnancy has been emphasized heavily on a mother’s decision to abort their child, but the father of the child plays an active role since he considers to that particular title. Through this current issue, majority of the people against abortion do not seem to have an open mind to how much it primarily affects the decision of the mother amongst her own views of considering abortion.
Similarly, the issue of gendercide is seen in the film “It’s a Girl”. Gendercide is not only executed through feticide, but is also present in older, usually married women through dowry and other forms of gender based violence. The film takes place in patriarchally structured India and China, and opens by disclosing the ratio of boys to girls in the world, 105:100, and then specifies that ratio in nations that value male lives, which is 140:100 (0:05). Parents in these nations often kill their young female children, justifying the act by noting that the children will die in one minute (usually via asphyxiation), rather than suffer day by day existing as a woman in a male-privileged society (0:08). When women in India get married, their families
It is saddening to see humans of the female gender, who find themselves in a situation that requires introducing a new life into the world; to abort such a precious gift. Many may wonder how these poor, innocent, unborn children are then discarded after the abortion procedure. One cannot fathom the reason of these gruesome murders that happens within these medical facilities. Babies are disposed in the red waste bins of these facilities, and later incinerated. Some may either be flushed down garbage disposals or even be sold off for research purposes. The issue of abortion is not just a social one, but also a human rights issue among the unborn children. I believe if the human rights of these children has been violated, then all other rights of humans are certainly meaningless.
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion of a fetus or embryo from the uterus before viability (dictionary.com). Those who disagree with abortion think that this is not right, mid evil and a form of murder. All of those thoughts are correct; abortion is the act of removing a fetus from the protection of the mother’s uterus. However, is it not the duty of the mother to protect her unborn child? In this day in age, we are still allowing this barbaric method of ending a pregnancy to happen despite the many alternatives. If an unexpected pregnancy should occur, abortion should not the only option. There are many reasons why abortion should not be illegal in all parts of the world, and people need to know the options available. Adoption is certainly a strong option in a world wanting for children. Abortion is not a method of birth control and people need to be educated on pregnancy prevention and take on some responsibilities.
In recent modern times, the Islamic faith and culture has been scarred by bad publicity and criticism worldwide concerning terrorism, fanaticism, and the treatment of women. All these issues have existed in most religions throughout time, but the treatment of women is different in which most other cultures and religions have minimized the issues and Islam, under its attempts to also end it, has failed to create a society in which the treatment of women is equal to that of men. The treatment of women, beginning from the time when they are born, to the time of their marriage, to the moment of their death, has not been equal to that of men despite the actions taken to end the injustice.
That is 545 deaths per every 100,000 successful deliveries. Also, a woman’s chance of dying from “pregnancy and childbirth in Nigeria is 1 in 13” (Abara 2012) Nearly 50% of Nigerian women are mothers before they turn 20. There in inability to access quality 6 health care services, poor access to safe childbirth services and lack of adequate and affordable emergency care. In some parts of the country, religion does not allow women to deliver in the hospital. Also, the husbands are not to be happy to see their wives opening up to a doctor for any from of virginal exanimations. So from a young age, the girl child is taught how to deliver her baby unassisted. This leads to infections and death. Also, gender inequality is imbedded in Nigerian society and culture. Although women do have rights to land, the patriarchal society dictates that their rights are weaker than a man 's. This shows the unequal distribution of power between man and women. Women have a very high fertility rate of six children per woman, due to the pressure on her to give birth to boys who can inherit and own land. As said by Newbury, “If a woman has a girl first, she is more likely to have more children, not use contraceptives, have short periods between pregnancies, and be subjected to polygamy” (Newbury 2004). Each of these factors increases a woman 's vulnerability to
Female foeticide has become a disgraceful and shocking reality of this nation. For centuries, families across many parts of India have look upon the male child as the superlative of the two sexes. A male child is seen as a blessing in the Indian society and since years people have made lavish offerings and numerous prayers in hopes for getting a son. These beliefs continue to remain even though times have changed and now much of the inequality is reducing. The Indian society recognizes a insightful faith in every individual’s right to life and dignity but this rights are dishonored when it comes to women and children in this society. A difference in a society’s ideal values and its reality is defined as a social