The following news release was issued on Oct. 10, 2014.
The third annual International Day of the Girl Child is Oct. 11, 2014, declared by the United Nations as a day to acknowledge and promote the rights of female children. The theme of this year's observance is "Empowering adolescent girls: Ending the cycle of violence."
"The theme should draw attention to the plight of young women forced to undergo abortion in certain parts of the world," noted Scott Fischbach of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Global Outreach (MCCL GO). Under rigid population control policies in China, countless women have been coerced into choosing abortion. Many have even been violently and forcibly subjected to it.
"Adolescent girls need support, protection and empowerment—not violence," Fischbach said. "This abuse of human rights and women's rights must stop, for the sake of both women and children."
Girl children are most at risk from abortion. Today, parents can identify the gender of their unborn child early in pregnancy, and abortion can be performed solely on the basis of the baby's sex. The victims of these sex-selective abortions are overwhelming female.
Sex-selective feticide, which has appropriately been called "gendercide," is commonplace in China, India and Korea, where culture and tradition favor boys. U.N. estimates indicate that more than 200 million females are "missing." This gender imbalance has serious social and demographic consequences.
The Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, which is marking its 20th anniversary this year, acknowledges that the practices of sex-selective abortion and female infanticide reflect a harmful son preference and calls on governments to take steps to prevent these forms of discrimination.
"Legal and educational initiatives to protect the girl child ought to be implemented," said Fischbach. "As we celebrate the rights of girls, we must remember that the most basic human right is the right to life. Before everything else, the right to life must be protected for all girls."
MCCL GO is a pro-life NGO global outreach program of the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Education Fund with one goal: to save as many innocent lives as possible from the destruction of abortion. Learn more at www.mccl-go.org.
