It's a Girl!

This Indian woman has killed

eight of her baby girls.

I just strangled it soon

after it was born.

Why keep girls when raising

them would be difficult?

She would get pregnant in

the hopes of having a son.

But each time she'd deliver

a daughter instead

and each time she'd kill the baby

because she did not want a daughter.

She wanted a son.

I felt we could keep it

only if it was a male,

and kill it if it was a

female child.

I would kill it and bury it.

Women have the power to give life

and the power to take it away.

Sadly, this woman's

story is not unique.

In many nations,

particularly India and China,

the three most dangerous words

heard at the birth of a child are:

"It's a Girl. "

Around the world, the

average gender ratio

is 105 boys for every

100 girls born.

But in certain regions

in India and China,

that ratio is as high as 140

boys to every 100 girls.

And each year, that ratio skews

more and more toward boys

as fewer and fewer

girls are born.

What is causing this

tremendous shift

in the two most populated

nations on earth?

In India and China, most families

prefer sons to daughters.

Their cultures and traditions

have instilled in them a belief

that sons bring strength,

blessing and wealth to the family.

Daughters do not.

In fact, daughters in

these cultures

are typically considered drains

on families and their resources.

For instance, in India,

a daughter's family

is usually expected to pay

an expensive dowry

of property and money

to the husband's family.

Families with sons gain wealth

and daughters-in-law.

Families with daughters lose

both their wealth to dowry,

and their daughters.

This cultural preference for

sons has led many families

to rid themselves

of female children.

Baby girls are

frequently aborted,

killed immediately after birth,

or abandoned.

Those daughters that

do live, though,

often become victims

of neglect and abuse.

This mass extermination

of female children...

this gendercide...

is the direct result of cultures

which place a high value

on the lives of boys

and a low value on

the lives of girls.

In our homes and orphanages,

many children,

they are handed over

by their own parents.

Generally, poor parents,

they do not like to

have female children.

Glory Dass runs several

orphanages in Southern India.

Many of the girls in his homes

were abandoned by families

who did not want daughters.

The parents, even sometimes

they don't have feeling of sad

when they kill their babies,

because what they think,

within a minute

the child can die

instead of the child struggling

and dying day by day,

every day in the poverty.

What they think, they want to

in a minute to kill their baby.

It was due to meager income...

When there is no income,

nothing can be done.

No earnings of a male member.

Again, me alone struggling

with my own earnings,

it was not possible to

manage the family.

Mariamall, she said, she

don't feel anything bad,

that she killed her baby

many years back,

because now she is

struggling by poverty,

and lots of ups and

downs in her family.

So she feels if the

baby were still alive,

she would have suffered

very much.

It was because of dowry.

Our men can't make enough money

to meet high costs of living.

It is difficult to provide

jewelry for marriage

With income so low, it is even

difficult to manage for food.

What they generally do,

they just wet the cloth,

and they fold it like this,

and they put it on the face,

so the child can't breathe.

Immediately the child will die.

This is an entire system, a

social machinery, that says,

"We don't want females. "

The killing of females

is actually systemic.

That... it is not just

before birth,

but it's also after birth,

and different stages of birth.

There's a huge amount

of female infanticide.

Girls under the age of

five, five and under,

have a very high

mortality rate.

Either they don't get food,

or if they're sick, they don't

want to spend on medicine.

It is negligent homicide.

They are just allowed to die,

in a way that boys are

not allowed to die.

In India today, the devaluation

of women and girls is widespread.

Because of factors like female feticide,

female infanticide,

abuse and neglect,

one out of four girls does

not live past puberty.

The mortality rates for girls

between the ages of one and five

are 40% higher than

those of boys.

Why are some of the

Indian households

secretly and brutally

eliminating daughters

from their family system?

Are Indians hating women?

They like daughter in-laws,

but they don't like daughters.

A responsibility to take care of

the parents is on the male child.

It's also that the male child

is supposed to perform

the last rites.

This is also a system

of patriarchy,

and so the family property,

family tradition, family responsibilities

are to be shared by and

carried forward by the son;

whereas the daughter,

after getting married,

gets nearly disconnected

with her parental family

except in times of emergency.

So a grownup daughter

is literally no good,

so far as family's wealth

system is concerned,

family's requirements

are concerned,

family's challenges

are concerned.

And this makes Indian people

have son preference and

daughter avoidance.

According to one UN estimate,

there are up to 200

million missing women

in the world today

due to gendercide.

Today, India and China

eliminate more girls

than the number of girls born

in America every year.

Genocide is the deliberate,

systematic destruction

of a racial, ethnic,

or religious group.

Gendercide is the deliberate,

systematic destruction

of a gender group

- Usually girls.

Can you tell me

what were the methods you

used to kill children?

By pouring acid to suffocate...

sometimes by strangulation.

So they crush the neck,

or they put the wet

cloth on the face.

Sometimes they

put some rice,

the child will die.

Sometimes they give poison,

some drops of poison in

the milk.

There are some special plants,

if they take the milk from

that plant, the child will die.

We just came down to Haryana

to one of our projects

to have a meeting with the

local community here.

This was arranged by our

Field Coordinator.

And in this meeting we

discussed various topics

of female feticide, of dowry,

of equality of girl

child and boy child.

What is it to us if it

is a boy or girl?

We have to end the

dowry system.

This is mostly a problem

with our men

that we have to solve.

Dowry system is one of the main

problems for female feticide.

It is because of this that girls

are considered a burden.

All the women said that

boys and girls are equal,

and we don't have anything

against girls and boys,

it's more our men who force

us to have a male child.

Although there was

a hidden tone

in which everybody said that

once you have a girl child,

please do not kill them,

and it's completely incorrect

to do infanticide.

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