Directed by Evan Grae Davis
While women’s reproductive rights may be under assault in the United States, in India, China and other parts of the world, girls’ very existence is not just threatened, but often denied. More females are missing on earth today from gendercide than the combined number of deaths from all the genocides of the 20th century. This powerful film, It’s a Girl, reveals the shocking details.
In China, the film reports, there are 13 million abortions a year, many of them forced. And in India, not only are many female fetuses aborted (20–30 percent), but when a girl is born, instead of rejoicing, the parents frequently kill the child, often in horrific ways. The rationale of some? The child dies within a minute instead of struggling and dying day-by-day.
An Indian woman tells us with a smile on her face, that she has killed eight infant daughters because she wanted a son. There is no apparent sense of remorse, and these babykillers are neither prosecuted by the government nor shunned by their society.
When girl babies are allowed to live, they are often abused or neglected. For example, a son who is sick will be sent to a doctor, a daughter will not. A son is educated, a daughter is not. One out of four girls does not live past puberty.
Whereas a son is believed to bring strength, blessings and wealth for his family of origin, daughters are not welcomed. Fueling the desire for a son to carry on the family name is the dowry system, which in India was outlawed in 1961, but is still widely practiced. Dowries given by the bride to the groom’s family can include anything from animals and cash to BMWs and property, making daughters expensive and sons a financial benefit.
In China, which now has 37 million more males than females due to these practices, sex trafficking, child kidnapping and prostitution have increased. Desperate families are snatching and raising little girls so their sons will have a bride when the time comes. Almost nobody wants to give birth to a daughter, but everybody wants a daughter-in-law.
(Shadowline Films)
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—Abigail Lewis
