Every day girls are abandoned, aborted and even murdered solely because of their sex in a term known as “gendercide.”
On Thursday, March 31, at 6 p.m., students gathered in the IRC auditorium to watch and discuss the documentary, “It’s a Girl.” The film took the audience to both India and China to show the horrors of being a daughter due to both cultural customs and unethical laws.
The practice of “gendercide” stems from sexist customs that favor men over women. One of these customs, found in both India and China, is the idea that when a woman marries, she leaves her family to become a part of her husband’s family. As both China and India lack nursing homes, parents prefer to have a son so that someone will take care of them when they grow old.
In India, dowry also pays a huge factor in “gendercide” because the parents of a bride are expected to pay the parents of the groom. For many, a daughter is equivalent to a loss of money and a son is equivalent to a gain of money.
According to the documentary, China participates in “gendercide” due to the one child law, which was uplifted after the documentary. Any woman who was illegally pregnant would be forced by the Family Planning Committee to have an abortion.
Due to this preference for girls, many parents would abort the child if it was a girl or abandon the female baby. This has led to 37 million more males in China than females.
This overpopulation of males has increased prostitution, the kidnapping of girls and sex trafficking.
When asked why students at Ferris should be aware of this issue, Ferris Professor Dr. Teresa Bailey argued an excellent point.
“Michigan is one of the top five states for sex-trafficking,” said Bailey. “Women are told they have a job and end up trapped in sex slavery.”
Dr. Bailey herself took action after watching a similar documentary by adopting a baby girl from China who had been abandoned at a train station. The audience was urged to adopt, donate, petition world leaders and bring awareness to others.
“I think one of the main ways to help end a situation like this is to bring awareness to help start a change,” Ferris pre-pharmacy sophomore Alexandra Rueger said. “I was excited that they gave resources to take action.”
For more information, go to www.itsagirlmovie.com or rent the documentary on Netflix or Amazon Video.