On the occasion of 100th Women anniversary of Women’s International Day: - A Tribute to India’s Missing Girls, Mar 8, 2011 Manju Seal

On the occasion of 100th Women anniversary of Women’s International Day: - A Tribute to India’s Missing Girls, Mar 8, 2011

March 7 2011

On the occasion of 100th anniversary of Women’s International Day (2011):

- A Tribute to India’s Missing Girls

The 2nd Annual Global Walk for India's Missing Girls was held March 5th 2011, on the occasion of International Women's Day. Over 16 cities across 4 countries came together - San Francisco, Washington DC, New York, Mumbai, Delhi, Jamshedpur, Kolkata , Chandigarh, Chennai, Agra, Goa, Bangalore, Goa, Dubai, Toronto and Vancouver. My thoughts shared at the steps of San Francisco City Hall are below and dedicated to the memories of all the girl-children lost around the world until today.

Good Morning! It is an honor to be here with you today. I bring you good wishes from our staff, volunteers and the Board of Directors of Narika. Narika is a Bay area non-profit that helps South Asian women who have experienced domestic violence or trafficking. In the past 18 years, we have served many South Asian women (and often their children) in their tough, and lonely journeys from being victims of domestic violence to empowered women. I would like to thank each and every one of you for showing up today from all around the Bay area and spending a morning out of your busy weekend to be with us! Kudos to Nyna and Petals in the Dust team for organizing this walk - 2 years in a row.

As the movie Petals in the Dust¹ shares with its viewers, it is alarming that the sex ratio in India of men vs. women now ranges anywhere from 1000 to 927 (in the best case scenario) and 1000 to 591 (in the worst case scenario). We know this problem exists not just in India but also in other Asian countries such as China. In a 2007 report, UNICEF had this to share “birth histories and census data reveal an unusually high proportion of male births and male children under five in Asia, notably in China and India, suggesting sex selective foeticide and infanticide in the world’s two most populous countries – despite initiatives to eradicate these practices in both countries.”²

Given that China and India have emerged in the past few years – as the booming economies with an annual GDP growth of 8.5% or more, and joined the ranks of leading nations around the globe - it becomes their social responsibility, with this new-found recognition, that they also focus their efforts in their regions and bring positive changes for its vulnerable populations of women and children.

The problem of discrimination against the girl-child is age-old. This especially can be proven when you read a poem from The Book of Songs³ from China (from 1000-700 B.C.) that offers this advice to new parents:

When a son is born
Let him sleep on the bed,
Clothe him with fine clothes.
And give him jade to play with. …

When a daughter is born,
Let her sleep on the ground,
Wrap her in common wrappings,
And give her broken tiles for playthings

This attitude expressed in the poem has been practised in India and around the world for centuries in varying degrees. Like domestic violence, decisions regarding sex-selection based on gender occur behind closed doors. In Dec 2006, UNICEF shared that “Seven thousand fewer girls are born in India each day than the global average would suggest, largely because female foetuses are aborted after sex determination tests.”²

In India, we, as adult men and women, try to rationalize this killing or gendercide based on - how many daughters we already have or how the first-born should not be a girl-child, that sons are needed to light our funeral pyres when we die, or how poor we are or how rich we are; how we need a son only - to whom we must hand over our business because daughters can’t be leaders or breadwinners; or that sons will take care of us financially when we are old; how as mothers we have failed our husband by giving birth to a daughter; or since the dowry sent has already fallen short hence birthing a daughter is just not acceptable; how we believe a life of a girl is just not worth living; or having a girl could mean that we as parents now have to find a husband for her and spend the next eighteen years collecting dowry for her - hence, what other option do we have BUT to kill her. Unfortunately, some of us bring these ideas to the newly adopted countries where we settle and continue to believe them.⁴

For those of us who might still disbelieve that this occurs, I would like to share a note I received from someone in India last week, in response to the announcement for this Global Walk. I quote here:

“It is hard to believe that my Best friends elder sister gave birth to a baby girl and minutes after her birth the father & the father in law asked the mother who was feeding her baby to handover the baby as they needed to take the baby…. and get the baby blessed. Hours passed by and the baby did not return and finally it was told to the mother that on the way the baby lost breath and died !!! They had actually killed the baby by stopping the baby's breath. Something really needs to be done in this front and something needs to be done very soon before we lose many more innocent girl children.” [shared here with permission]

Research indicates this imbalance in sex ratio causes a variety of social problems including gang violence, sexual assault, multiple marriages of the same woman to different men, rape and more. So what are the solutions? A full length discussion is not possible here today, so here are a few quick thoughts. No country on this planet has displayed gender parity until today.⁵ Hence, striving for gender parity is much needed through education and at our work and home in every country. After all you are asking a whole new generation of people around the globe; to change their thinking about women, to have respect for women’s way of doing business, their intelligence, their values and contributions to our societies. This will take decades!

Meanwhile, Indian government needs to put in place tougher laws to prevent such killing. Creating awareness about female foeticide and infanticide is necessary both in our inner and outer circles in India and abroad. Supporting events - such as the walk today is important. We need to give voice to the issue of female infanticide and foeticide via media, conferences, at homes, in our communities and governments. Mass-education for adults in India is especially needed to impress that instead of killing a girl-child, giving-up for adoption is a really good and positive-alternative.

Finally, let me leave you with some powerful thoughts and tell me if you can guess when this was written…

Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood… We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.⁶

Martin Luther King shared these insights in 1960s! Long before Facebook or Twitter demonstrated our intra-global connectedness, MLK had the vision and ability to articulate it simply. In the decades to come, I believe solving local issues via a thread of global partnerships will become the norm as we overwhelmingly realize and accept this connectedness amongst all of us. Hence, I especially commend all the folks of non-Indian origin who are here today to support the walk.

Counting on our local governments to solve all our injustices and social problems is not a realistic approach. In today’s world, we can bring change if many come together and collaborations/partnerships are created effectively. Non-profits are our social mirrors and incubators, community leaders and volunteers are our agents of change, and of course, there is power within each of us to participate in a social change - aided by the new tools of social media.

So let us leave today with the intent of doing our bit. Let us walk with the awareness of this injustice of killing infant girls or female fetuses – and let us pledge to collaborate individually, locally, nationally and internationally in doing what we can to eradicate this violence that lives within our homes. And last but not least, let us also honor the memories of ALL girl-children who have been killed around the world in the past and unfortunately, those who will be killed, in the near-future. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to be here with you today.

Notes:

1 www.petalsinthedust.com/Trailer3.html

2 www.unicef.org/sowc07/report/report.php

3 middlekingdomlife.com/guide/understanding-chinese-women.htm

4 www.indiacurrents.com/news/view_article.html

5 www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,675620,00.html

6 mindful.org/the-mindful-society/environment/the-global-gandhi