Asia’s 20th-century female holocaust

While Asian and Pacific leaders are putting the finishing touches on a plan to rescue themselves from economic crisis, a social and moral catastrophe taking place in the region is just now being recognized by international health and political officials.

A recent World Health Organization report, written in the cool, clinical language of the global health bureaucracy, lends credence to an earlier finding that as many as 50 million women are “missing” in China — “victims of female feticide, selective malnourishment of girls, lack of investment in women’s health and various forms of violence.”

“Strong son preference in some Asian and Pacific countries has exacerbated the already reduced probability of being born female (through abortion of female fetuses),” says a 1997 WHO report titled “Women’s Health in a Social Context in the Western Pacific Region.”

While the statistics on the victimization of women, girls and unborn females are staggering throughout Asian cultures, the sheer numbers are most striking in China — the world’s most populous country.

“China has one of the ‘world’s most skewed birth rates,’ with 117 boys born for every 100 girls in 1994,” it says. “Although baby girls usually have a better survival rate than baby boys (which evens up the imbalance at birth) in China, Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea and Vietnam, that natural process is being reversed by female infanticide, neglect, maltreatment and malnutrition of female infants.”

Dr. Amartya Sen, who earlier studied the Chinese situation closely, estimates that more than 50 million women are unaccounted for in the population — a statistic that results in large measure to the country’s one-child-per-family and forced-abortion policies.

“The population skewing does not stop at infancy … in spite of the natural biological advantage of females,” says the WHO report.

One study, conducted in 1985, found a village near Beijing populated by 100 boys to every 35 girls in the first five years of life. Ultrasound technology permitting the pre-birth determination of gender is widely available in the Chinese capital and other urban areas throughout the country. A 1993 study cited in the report found that mothers are more likely to bring their male children to health clinics and physicians, especially at earlier ages, than girls.

“Sons carry on the family line, are expected to live with parents after marriage, support the older generation and pay homage to the ancestors,” the report says. “This is practiced not only in China, but by overseas Chinese in the region as well.”

The biggest factor in the statistical differential, however, appears to be due to abortion.

“Son preference affects all aspects of a woman’s life, including child care, health, education and employment, because she is discriminated against the moment she is born and sometimes even before if sex-selection procedures are available,” says the 62-page report.” In Japan, couples often resort to sex-testing to know whether the fetus is male or female, and, if female, it is often aborted.”

Feminist groups in Japan, says the report, have become alarmed at the trend. Some, like the Japan Women’s Health Network, while still officially calling for abortion on demand, have begun publicly decrying the use of the procedure for the purposes of sex selection.

While recognizing the role of sex-selection abortions as critical in the development of the crisis, the WHO report is careful not to criticize official Chinese government population-control policies. More blame is placed on “harmful traditional practices” and economic factors. Over and over again, the report emphasizes the cultural preferences toward sons — which inevitably lead to sex-selection abortions and infanticide.

“The birth of a son gives the mother several advantages,” it says. “In a survey carried out in 1993 in Shanxi Province, China, it was shown that the mother enjoyed definite advantages during the postpartum period if she had given birth to a son, both materially and spiritually. She enjoyed a higher quality of medical care and better nutrition, and was expected to perform less housework. Current practices such as clothes the babies wear, foods eaten and the gifts given at various ceremonies, emphasize the gender differences in the expectation parents have for the future of their children.”

The U.N.’s proposed solution to the victimization of women in Asia includes:

 

• Family planning counseling, information, education, communication and services;

   

• Education and services for prenatal care, safe delivery and post-natal care, especially breast-feeding, infant and women’s health care;

   

• Prevention and appropriate treatment of infertility;

   

• Prevention of abortion and the management of the consequences of abortion;

   

• Treatment of reproductive tract infections, sexually transmitted diseases and other reproductive health conditions;

   

• Information, education and counseling, as appropropriate, on human sexuality, reproductive health and responsible parenthood.