Attitudes, inequalities at root of ‘missing’ girls: Balkissoon

Denise Balkissoon on the study showing a prevalence of Indo-Canadian sex selection abortions:

But it’s short-sighted to brand this an immigrant problem or to react by restricting women’s rights. This is a problem of tradition and history, and modern Asia is troubled by it, too. While India and China are scrambling to find real fixes, the Journal noted that South Korea seems to have turned around a centuries-old preference for boys in a single generation.

Sex-selective abortions took off in South Korea after 1980, when ultrasounds became widely available. By 1990, the Journal notes, 116.5 boys were born for every 100 girls (the average in most Western countries, including Canada, is 105 boys to 100 girls). Korean advocates for women and girls didn’t respond by attempting to restrict reproductive freedom. Instead, they targeted issues of women’s inequality; for example, pushing for legislation to allow families to use the mother’s surname, instead of the father’s, as was traditional. The government was also persuaded to subsidize child care up to the age of 5, and to give incentives to companies offering paternity leave. The results were extraordinary: By 2014, the ratio of male to female babies was at the 105-to-100 level that health experts consider natural.

If we want the same result for Canada’s South Asian babies, this is the template to follow. Restricting access to health information or abortions might help to fix the numbers, but it’s the stories behind the numbers that matter.

I don’t just want the “right” number of girl babies to show up every year. I want to end discrimination against the girls currently living with parents who had them reluctantly, and to make sure that women have options if they’re abused for not producing boys. I want senior citizens to know they’ll be taken care of even if their sons don’t bring home wives, and I want 35-year-olds to feel valued by their communities whether or not they have partners.

Maybe the result of all that would be fewer abortions in Canada. But that’s not the goal we should prioritize.