Female Infanticide in Pakistan

There is a no bigger disappointment than the birth of a girl child in a family. Why wouldn’t it be?

They are merely a responsibility, an added burden to be married off as soon as she hits puberty, a walking talking representative of the honor of the family that needs to be guarded by restricting her thinking, by not letting her talk too much, by not letting her feel like she is an individual she is after all “our izzat“, and is transferred to another family after a suitable exchange as “their izzat” and of course the child bearer for the continuity of the generations.

The female child is the symbol of shame, something that needs to be rid of because,

why bear so much responsibility? Sure we wanted a child but a male child is what we were hoping for.

This is the sickening mentality of our society and this is where in the twenty-first century our Pakistani women stand. Female feticide is the deliberate killing of a newborn female child. The rate of female infanticide is increasing every year in Pakistan.

As per the research conducted by the Population Research Institute, over 1.2 million female fetuses were aborted in Pakistan during 2000-2014; the annual rate of selective abortion is around 116,384. These numbers are forever escalating and we are doing nothing to resolve this issue in any manner.

Even when the child is allowed to live, the quality of the reproductive health deteriorates as soon as the family discovers that the fetus is a Girl Child.

Our society forgets how the female child is also as much human as the male child, as much of a blessing from God as a male child, as much of a responsibility of the parents as much deserving of love as a male child, because guess what, they did not choose their gender, even their mother didn’t either and as much impossible and improbable it seems in your small world, they are equally human and deserve a chance at life.