chinese one child policy

[Le Chat]

Given that we are all humans, cut from the same cloth and ultimately with the same feelings of love and protection towards our children ; how is it that people in China can leave their baby girls to rot in the street, or to kill them in the hope of then having a boy. Also, what do you think will happen when boys outnumber girls by a massive majority, which will surely happen. Will girls then be kidnapped as they will be in short supply and forced to marry and reproduce?

[WoWo]

"Also, what do you think will happen when boys outnumber girls by a massive majority, which will surely happen"

It's already happening, there was a thing on the TV a while ago about villages that were dying out simply because there were no girls around. They would last one more generation and that would be it.

[woofgang]

I also recall a news story about girls being kidnapped because there aren't enough wives to go around

[smudge]

Having two daughters & three Granddaughters,  I couldn't begin to imagine why these cruel heartless people would want to kill or abandon innocent baby girls - or indeed, want to decrease the female population.

We also have a Grandson & would think the same if it were boys too.

[Loosehead]

A similar thing happens in parts of India. Girls are routinely abandonned to avoid a dowry later on.

[Hgrove]

You might be interested in a book I read entitled "The first century after Beatrice" by Amin Maalouf, a novel set in an imaginary future in which no more girls are born, and the consequences.

[Dom Tuk]

AS a post has pointed out, female infanticide is not restricted to China and there are many other countries that practise it, India being an example. In both these countries female infanticide is a crime and legislation is in place to severely punish the perpretators. As to the reasons why this is done...it is down to moralities and societal pressure. Is it any different from say parents in thailand who give their little sons and daughters into the prostitution trade, or parents in western societies who permit teenage binge drinking and pregnancies. who is to say what is right or wrong. In the end humankind is cruel to each other  and that is the bottom line.

[Weaza_cfc]

Obvioulsy this is a cruel practice, however we must consider why people would do this and strive to help change views, instead of condemn. It sickens me to imagen how they could possibly explain their reasons, however do you really believe they are doing it just to be cruel? They must have reasons.

Think about it; this question is similar to "How can people in Western Society abort living things, because they came along at "the wrong time"."

[woofgang]

well yes, but the reason that it happens is the one child law and the "dying rooms, as I understand it are government funded

[Kingaroo]

It happens among the desperately poor. They know they can't afford to provide dowries to marry off their daughters. Her parents will have to afford her until she turns to the only choice for an unmarried woman, prostitution.

A son, on the other hand, is honor bound to support his parents in their old age. He will get money from his bride's parents and enhance his family's wealth.

I read an anthropological study on poor women in a south american slum who detach themselves early from newborns who don't look like they're going to make it. They are very sad, but do nothing to save the child, feeling it was born in error and is doomed. I imagine that something similar happens in cultures where daughters are abandoned. The parents keep themselves from loving the child because they know her life is doomed anyway.