{"id":849,"date":"2012-11-22T18:11:21","date_gmt":"2012-11-22T18:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/?p=849"},"modified":"2021-02-18T21:41:37","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T21:41:37","slug":"this-thanksgiving-give-thanks-for-a-life-by-saving-one-introducing-the-save-a-girl-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/this-thanksgiving-give-thanks-for-a-life-by-saving-one-introducing-the-save-a-girl-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"This Thanksgiving, Give thanks for a life by saving one: Introducing the “Save a Girl” Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s an awesome article by Kristen Walker Hatten, posted on Live Action News today.\u00a0 Here’s the link to the original story.\u00a0 http:\/\/liveactionnews.org\/international\/introducing-the-save-a-girl-campaign\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s the direct link to our “Save a Girl” Campaign http:\/\/womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/index.php?nav=end-gendercide-and-forced-abortion<\/a><\/p>\n

Give Thanks for a life by saving one:\u00a0 Introducing the “Save a Girl” Campaign<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Kirsten Walker Hatter, Live Action News<\/p>\n

Reggie Littlejohn is busy.<\/p>\n

When we speak on the phone, she\u2019s in the process of traveling through Washington, D.C., by train and on foot. At one point, her train goes underground and we\u2019re cut off. Two weeks ago, we couldn\u2019t speak because she was traveling in Europe.<\/p>\n

Why is Reggie Littlejohn so busy? Because, as president of Women\u2019s Rights Without Frontiers, she was involved in the documentary film It\u2019s A Girl, which is being screened around the world as we speak. Recently, it was shown at the British Parliament and the European Parliament, to a diverse audience. \u201cI think it\u2019s pretty encouraging that the film was featured in the Amnesty International Film Festival just a few weeks ago,\u201d says Littlejohn. \u201cAmnesty International is not a pro-life organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Littlejohn is also busy because her organization has launched a campaign that directly, literally saves baby girls. The Save A Girl campaign is one that anyone can get involved in, and it is an excellent way to give thanks for life this Thanksgiving season. The fact is, the multifarious crimes against women, girls, and the unborn in China and India explored in It\u2019s A Girl \u2013 forced abortion, female feticide, infanticide, dowry death, and more \u2013 are not going away without help from people outside those countries. People like me. And you.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndia does not have a one-child policy,\u201d Littlejohn explains. \u201cIndia does not have a government-imposed birth limit. People are much freer in India to have a grassroots movement.\u201d As the film explains, though, unfortunately, the culture in India \u2013 specifically the tradition of dowry \u2013makes sons so preferred over daughters that deep cultural change will be needed to end crime against women and girls.<\/p>\n

In China, things are more difficult; grassroots movements are impossible. \u201cYou can\u2019t do that in China. It\u2019s a Communist country where they control the media. People who challenge it end up like Chen Guangcheng,\u201d Littlejohn says, referring to the blind human rights lawyer who was imprisoned for representing women in his province who had been forcibly sterilized or forced to abort their children.<\/p>\n

Littlejohn, herself an attorney who has represented Chinese refugees and helped bring Guangcheng to the U.S., is no longer allowed into China.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are basically two circumstances of abortion in China,\u201d she says. \u201cThe first is forced abortion under the One Child Policy. So if people get pregnant without a birth permit or permission and they can\u2019t pay the fine, they end up with a forced abortion, and that abortion, it doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s a boy or a girl.\u201d She also explains that the fines can sometimes be ten times the family\u2019s annual income. \u201cThen there\u2019s gendercide, where baby girls are selected for abortion. The government is not forcing them to do that, but there is a strong correlation between coercion and gendercide.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, sons are so preferred and the number of children so strictly limited that female babies are selected for abortion \u2013 an indirect but clear result of the One Child Policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just a matter of changing laws,\u201d says Littlejohn. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to change the culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reggie Littlejohn<\/p>\n

In China, there is already evidence of a growing ratio of men to women, and it\u2019s getting worse. \u201cAlready child bride kidnapping is happening in China,\u201d Littlejohn tells me. \u201cAlso, another big effect is human kidnapping and sexual slavery. China is very much a destination for women and girls who have been trafficked for sexual slavery. Another thing they have is bachelor villages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because females are so often abandoned, killed, or aborted, wives are in high demand, and women are often able to marry above their social strata, leaving poorer men wifeless. \u201cSo in the poor villages, the women have all married up, and there are only men in these villages,\u201d Littlejohn says.<\/p>\n

While these crimes against females sound foreign and unbelievable, the sad truth is they have come to America. \u201cStudies have indicated that there is sex-selective abortion in the U.S. in communities that practice it in their native land,\u201d says Littlejohn.\u201d The thing that concerns me is the connection between sex-selection abortion and coercion. In most cases I believe in the U.S., as well as China and India, women are under intense pressure to abort if it\u2019s a girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

So. The big question: what do we do? How do we stop this?<\/p>\n

Changing thousands of years of son-preference culture in two countries and displacing a powerful Communist regime in China will not happen overnight. But there is good news: there is a real, tangible, simple way each one of us can help save the lives of baby girls in China. It\u2019s called the Save A Girl campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Save A Girl Campaign is how you can directly save lives in China,\u201d Littlejohn says. \u201cThis is the official campaign that is endorsed by the It\u2019s A Girl film.\u201d<\/p>\n

Littlejohn explained to me how it worked, and I had to force myself to respond through tears. I\u2019ve been involved in the pro-life movement in various ways for several years, and this is one of the most exciting, moving campaigns I\u2019ve heard of. Here\u2019s how it works: \u201cWe have a network inside China of field workers who find women who have had an ultrasound and found out they\u2019re pregnant with a girl and have decided to abort her, or have given birth to a girl and want to abandon her out in a field so she\u2019ll die,\u201d explains Littlejohn. \u201cWe go to her and say, \u2018Don\u2019t abort your daughter. Don\u2019t abandon your daughter. She is a beautiful girl. We will give you a stipend every month for a year to help you keep this girl.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Does that sound incredible? Wait \u2018til you hear this: \u201cIn every case where we have approached these women, they have kept their girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ask people to contribute $25 a month,\u201d says Littlejohn. \u201cTwenty dollars goes to the women and $5 goes to cover our costs and to the field workers who are bravely finding these women and getting the money into their hands.\u201d Right now, after having existed for only a little over a month, Save A Girl can claim 28 lives saved and women helped. \u201cWe want to have a thousand babies we\u2019re supporting this time next year. Our only limitation is the finances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s Rights Without Frontiers runs the campaign, maintains write-ups and photos on each baby, and collects signatures, via their field workers in China, from the parents when they receive the money. Of course, no photos or names are published. \u201cThe Chinese communist party would come and shut us down,\u201d says Littlejohn.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur primary focus is to end gendercide,\u201d Littlejohn says, \u201cso we\u2019re definitely locating women who are determined to abort or abandon babies. The other thing we\u2019re doing is helping women who are fleeing from forced abortions. We have one woman who was fleeing from village to village to avoid the family planning police. She had a baby boy a few months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Save A Girl is saving more than girls \u2013 this campaign is saving babies of both genders, and saving women from the horror of forced abortion.<\/p>\n

For those of us who read about gendercide and the crimes against women in China and India and say, If only there were something I could do, this is the answer. For about the price of your monthly \u2013 or weekly! \u2013 Starbucks budget, you can literally save a life.<\/p>\n

Here in the U.S. we have so much to be thankful for \u2013 not the least of which is the lives of baby girls and young women. This Thanksgiving, give thanks for your life and the lives of all women by giving to Save A Girl. Your donation will literally save a life.<\/p>\n

Save a Girl Campaign:\u00a0 http:\/\/womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/index.php?nav=end-gendercide-and-forced-abortion<\/a><\/p>\n

Visit the Women\u2019s Rights Without Frontiers website to donate and share this campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s an awesome article by Kristen Walker Hatten, posted on Live Action News today.\u00a0 Here’s the link to the original story.\u00a0 http:\/\/liveactionnews.org\/international\/introducing-the-save-a-girl-campaign\/ Here’s the direct link to our “Save a Girl” Campaign http:\/\/womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/index.php?nav=end-gendercide-and-forced-abortion Give Thanks for a life by saving … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[49,7,15,114,125,126,8,34,33,20,124,1,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinas-one-child-policy","category-forced-abortion","category-gendercide","category-its-a-girl","category-kristen-walker-hatten","category-live-action-news","category-one-child-policy","category-pro-choice","category-pro-life","category-reggie-littlejohn","category-save-a-girl","category-uncategorized","category-womens-rights-without-frontiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3184,"href":"https:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions\/3184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}