Where Are The Missing Fifty Million Indian Women?

Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen compared the natural ratio between men and women globally to the ratio in India and found that India has fifty million less women than it should have. Where are these women? They are dead. India has a massive, hidden, socially-sanctioned genocide on their hands.

The numbers are jaw-dropping:

• Some one million female fetuses are aborted each year.
• Midwives in some regions regularly kill the infant girls they deliver for as little as $1.50.
• Dowry-related murders of women stand at about 25,000 cases a year.
• A UNICEF report found that the mortality rate for girls under five is more than 40 percent higher than for boys the same age.
• WHO and UNIFEM estimate that one pregnant woman dies every five minutes in India.

Sure, in a country of over a billion people, "What is fifty million?" you might be thinking. Those are people's daughters, sisters, friends. The Mount Holyoake Alumnae Quarterly has an interview with a photographer, Rita Banerji, covering the killing of women in India.

Fifty million is SEVENTEEN times the population of Chicago.

With this post and now this, Shambollocks is proud to be fighting for women's rights in India.