News,  Politics

The Three Deadliest Words in the World: “It’s a Girl”

The video above is a trailer for a documentary to be released this year titled, “It’s a Girl: The Three Deadliest Words in the World.” The trailer alone is chilling. I can hardly imagine an entire movie documenting this atrocity. But we need to see the culture of death for what it is. Here’s a description of the movie:

In India, China and many other parts of the world today, girls are killed, aborted and abandoned simply because they are girls. The United Nations estimates as many as 200 million girls(1) are missing in the world today because of this so-called “gendercide”.

Girls who survive infancy are often subject to neglect, and many grow up to face extreme violence and even death at the hands of their own husbands or other family members.

The war against girls is rooted in centuries-old tradition and sustained by deeply ingrained cultural dynamics which, in combination with government policies, accelerate the elimination of girls.

Shot on location in India and China, It’s a Girl! explores the issue. It asks why this is happening, and why so little is being done to save girls and women.

The film tells the stories of abandoned and trafficked girls, of women who suffer extreme dowry-related violence, of brave mothers fighting to save their daughters’ lives, and of other mothers who would kill for a son. Global experts and grassroots activists put the stories in context and advocate different paths towards change, while collectively lamenting the lack of any truly effective action against this injustice.

(1)Vlachovà, Marie and Biason, Lea, Eds. (2004) Women in an Insecure World: Violence Against Women – Facts, Figures and Analysis. Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces.

You can view the website for the film here.

8 Comments

  • Matt Svoboda

    This is devastating. I leave for India in less than a month. May the gospel move through that country so powerfully that this horror ends.

  • John

    What a shame…as the father of four girls I can say, “It’s a girl!” are three of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard!

    • Christiane

      It is a truly horrible practice . . .

      here is a portion of a London Times report:

      “Holding my arm tight and with tears in her eyes, Vaira told me of the different ways in which girl children are murdered in the village.
      Some babies are buried alive or interred in pots where it takes up to two hours for them to suffocate. Others have their mouths stuffed with wet cloths or are slammed against walls. Or an infant may be fed the poisonous sap of a local plant which destroys the internal organs, causing convulsions and internal haemorrhaging. But perhaps the most horrific method is “dry drowning”, whereby the open mouth of a baby girl, searching for her mother’s nipple, receives instead a handful of grain which chokes the child to death.
      Recent government programmes to safeguard baby girls in Tamil Nadu have failed. Cradles where unwanted children could be deposited were installed in public spaces, and the authorities said that rescued children would be placed in orphanages. But this was not enough to change the attitudes of village women, who said they would rather kill a female child than create an orphan with no caste and identity, who they feared could one day dishonour the family or return to seek vengeance.
      This custom, created and perpetuated by men for their own benefit and supremacy, makes their wives and mothers killers”

  • Bradley

    This is sad. In these some of these 3rd world countries girls are either killed or sold into sex trafficking. What ever happened to respecting women as humans too.

  • Daryl Little

    What a horrible thing this is. And somehow the West is more civilized because it happens without the mother having to look at the child…

    How can anyone do that to their own child? And how can anyone do that to someone else’s child?

    Even so, Come quickly Lord Jesus!!

Leave a Reply to ChristianeCancel reply