![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/boy-1.jpg\" "\\"boy!\\"")
<\/a>This boy was almost aborted because the ultrasound said he was a girl. WRWF\u2019s \u201cSave a Girl\u201d Campaign saved his life.<\/p><\/div>\n
An administrator at a local hospital in rural China places a secret call to a Women\u2019s Rights Without Frontiers fieldworker. A woman\u2019s ultrasound shows a girl, he says. The family is known to practice gendercide, and the mother is being pressured to abort.<\/p>\n
One of our fieldworkers visits and learns the husband\u2019s family insists on the abortion. To help the mother keep the child, we offer monthly support for a year \u2013 part of our \u201cSave a Girl\u201d Campaign. She uses these much-needed funds to push back against the pressure to abort the baby because it\u2019s a girl.<\/p>\n
Then comes the birth of a healthy baby . . . boy!\u00a0 The ultrasound was wrong. In tears, the mother thanks us for saving her son, almost lost because he was expected to be a girl.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/span><\/p>\n Please help us save lives in China by donating to our * * * <\/span><\/p>\n Today, October 11, is International Day of the Girl Child.\u00a0 It was established by the UN in 2011 \u201cto recognize girls\u2019 rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world.\u201d\u00a0 It is a \u201cgirl\u2019s right\u201d not to be deleted from existence just because she\u2019s a girl.\u00a0 It is the \u201cunique challenge\u201d of girls in China and India to emerge from their mothers\u2019 wombs alive, so that they may draw breath upon this earth and see the light of day.<\/p>\n For most of us, hearing “it’s a girl” is cause for enormous joy, happiness and celebration.\u00a0 But in many countries, this announcement is a death sentence.\u00a0 Experts estimate that up to 200 million women are missing in the world today due to gendercide, mostly in China and India.<\/p>\n This should not be a pro-choice or a pro-life issue.\u00a0 This is a human rights issue. Gendercide is violence against women and girls.\u00a0 No one supports the systematic elimination of females.<\/p>\n Or so I thought.\u00a0 Just last week it was reported that it is now legal to selectively abort girls in the UK.<\/p>\n Where is the “feminist” outcry? How does it advance women’s rights to selectively abort hundreds of millions of girls, simply because they are future women? When faced with human rights atrocities of this scale, silence is complicity.<\/p>\n All too often, gendercide is not a choice. There is a strong correlation between sex-selective abortion and coercion. Crushing social, economic, political and personal pressures in cultures with a strong son preference trample women carrying girls.\u00a0 Women in these cultures hardly select their daughters for abortion. They are forced.<\/p>\n In China, the birth ratio of girls to boys is the most skewed in the world: approximately 100 girls born for every 119 boys. Sons traditionally carry on the family name, work the fields, and take care of their parents in old age. A daughter joins her husband\u2019s family at marriage. There is a saying: \u201cRaising a girl is like watering someone else\u2019s garden.\u201d The One Child Policy exacerbates the underlying son preference. When couples are restricted to a coercive low birth limit, women often become the focus of intense pressure by their husband and in-laws to ensure a boy.<\/p>\n Because of systematic, sex-selective abortion there are an estimated 37 million more males than females living in China today. The presence of these \u201cexcess males\u201d is the driving force behind human trafficking and sexual slavery, not only within China but from surrounding nations as well.<\/p>\n Finally, China has the highest female suicide rate of any country in the world. According to the most recent U.S. State Department China Human Rights Report, the number of female suicides has risen sharply in the past several years, from 500 women per day to 590.<\/p>\n It is a woman\u2019s right to choose to give birth to her daughters. Together, China and India comprise one third of the world\u2019s population. That one-third of the world\u2019s women are deprived of their right to bear girls is the biggest women\u2019s rights abuse on earth. This violent discrimination against women and girls deserves a passionate response from groups that stand for women\u2019s rights, whether on the right or on the left.<\/p>\n These problems are not confined to China and India.\u00a0 Female feticide happens in the United States and in many countries all over the world.<\/p>\n Every struggling mother deserves help to keep her daughter. Together, we can end gendercide and sweep sex-selective abortion into the dung-heap of history, where it belongs.<\/p>\n * * *<\/span><\/p>\n You can help save lives in China by donating to our * * *<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An administrator at a local hospital in rural China places a secret call to a Women\u2019s Rights Without Frontiers fieldworker. A woman\u2019s ultrasound shows a girl, he says. The family is known to practice gendercide, and the mother is being … Continue reading
\n“Save a Girl” Campaign today!<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n
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\n“Save a Girl” Campaign today!<\/em><\/span>
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