Gendercide ban would help Canada promote equality: rights advocate

Discrimination against women has led to a skewed sex ratio in India, according to human rights advocate Anushree Bernard.

Bernard runs the Vanishing Girls Campaign by ADF (Alliance Defending Freedom) in India. She told a virtual gathering of pro-life activists and politicians April 19 that a preference for sons in that country has led to sex selective abortion, female infanticide, and abuse of women and mothers.

“Every day 7,000 girls are aborted just because they are girls,” she said. A 2011 census in that country found that 918 girls were born for every 1,000 boys.

Unborn or infant girls are not the only targets of abuse; Bernard has met many women through her advocacy work who have been abused at the hands of partners and family members who did not want them to give birth to female children.

In her mind, it’s all linked to inequality between the sexes. One woman she met had been abused by her husband, and her three daughters faced abuse as well. One daughter, due to extreme neglect from husband and family members, died at the age of three months.

“This lady kept enduring the violence. She did not have the courage to leave her husband’s house, primarily because of the question of where she would go. It’s all related with economic independence of women, and she was not independent. She did not have any means, she was not educated, she could not earn a living on her own. Despite the violence she had to endure, she had to continue living with her two daughters and her husband hoping things would get better in the future,” said Bernard.

She added sexist views can keep women from becoming economically independent and from claiming property that is rightfully theirs under current property rights in India. Where dowry is still common practice, parents see daughters as an expense.

“There are some larger root causes that have created this problem.”

The irony of all this is India has a law against sex-selective abortion, but it has been poorly implemented. Canada has an opportunity to make a stand against the practice, and in doing so, provide an example to others, she said.

Bernard said what’s needed in India is provision of legal aid to mothers, promotion of human rights, and work toward putting an end to sex-selective practices.

“Why is it that in 2021 we are still not able to address the issue of gendercide?”

Tabitha Ewert, legal counsel for Canadian advocacy group We Need A Law, said a 2016 study estimated 4,472 daughters of Indian immigrants to Canada were “unaccounted for” in the last two decades.

“That’s just one segment of the Canadian population,” said Ewert, believing sex selection is practised by people of other cultures and for other reasons as well.

“If it happens in Canada, that makes it a Canadian problem and we need to do some serious reflection as to how Canadians should respond.”