This powerful documentary looks at the rampant existence of gendercide in India and China, two examples of patriarchal cultures that have devalued women for centuries to the point where all forms of abuse of girls and women is normal and goes on without repurcussions. In fact, the only families that face negative repercussions within these societies are those that value their daughters.
Here are some summaries from the last ten minutes of the film:
Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers: “Son preference comes from cultures that devalue women. They feel that women are just not as good as men. And women that have been beat down by these cultures, and they’ve been beat down for thousands of years, can’t always stand up for themselves. And that’s why women who come from cultures that value women, where women are equal, we need to stand up for our sisters. Because they cannot stand up for themselves.”
First Lady Hillary Clinton speech to the UN 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995: “It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food or drowned or suffocated or their spines broken simply because they are girls. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because they dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will. If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all.”
Since this address, very little has been done socially or politically to stop gendercide around the world. Women and girls throughout the world continue to suffer from all forms of gendercide: female feticide, infanticide, abandonment, abuse, neglect, dowry violence, trafficking, forced sterilization and forced abortion. More females are missing on earth today from gendercide than the combined number of deaths from all the genocides of the 20th century.
Rita Banerji, Author and Activist, 50 Million Missing Campaign: “The most fundamental right is to life and existence, and it’s unconditional…The fact that we have to justify why women shouldn’t be killed is a dehumanizing argument in and of itself. So I think that somehow there has been a shift in the human rights agendas away from women’s rights. They’re being treated as though they’re pandas or something….There has to be an assumption of responsibility, that we’ve allowed something to go horribly wrong and we’re each responsible to change it.”
Learn how to get involved in ending gendercide at www.itsagirlmovie.com.
The Beautiful Kingdom Builders 