Save the Girl Child

Today is National Girl Child Day. For those of us who come from more progressive backgrounds, the idea of needing a day to show how important girls are seems a little strange. But in many parts of India, girls are not valued at all. India has one of the most skewed sex ratios in the world. For every thousand men, there’s fewer than 925 women, due to the bias against baby girls. Nature has not skewed the number of girls born, people have. Many couples choose abortion when they learn their unborn child is female, even though prenatal sex screening is illegal. According to federal government statistics, more than 10 million girls have been "missing" in India over the past two decades because of sex-selection abortion. Rural couples who cannot afford to pay for ultrasounds choose to abandon infant girls, or not feed them. But while killing off these girls who are seen as a financial liability by their parents is obviously wrong, it’s also storing a huge problem up for the future. Who are their precious sons going to marry when there aren’t enough girls to go around?