Gendercide
Gendercide is the systematic killing of members of a specific gender.[1] The term is related to the general concepts of assault and murder against victims due to their gender, with violence against men and women being problems dealt with by human rights efforts. Gendercide shares similarities with the term 'genocide' in inflicting mass murders; however, gendercide targets solely one gender, being men or women. Politico-military frameworks have historically inflicted militant-governed divisions between femicide and androcide; gender-selective policies increase violence on gendered populations due to their socioeconomic significance. Certain cultural and religious sentiments have also contributed to multiple instances of gendercide across the globe.
Femicide is defined as the systematic killing of women for various reasons, usually cultural. The word is attested from the 1820s.[3]
The most widespread form of femicide is in the form of gender-selective infanticide in cultures with strong preferences for males such as China and India. According to the United Nations, male-to-female ratios have experienced radical changes from the normal range.[4] Gendercide of girls is reported to be a rising problem in several countries. Census statistics report that in countries such as China, the male to female ratio is as high as 120 men for every 100 women.[5] Many experts attribute such a ratio to institutions such as China's one-child policy. Female heirs were considered less desirable than male heirs, and subsequently abandoned and eliminated in mass.[6] Gendercide also takes the forms of infanticide and lethal violence against a particular gender at any stage of life. The World Bank describes violence against girls and women as a "global pandemic". One in three women experiences gender-based violence in their lifetime. In research released in 2019, 38% of murdered women were killed by an intimate partner.[7]
Sex ratios at birth over time in China:[8]
In India, parents may prefer male children because they desire heirs who will care for them in their old age. Other instances of female infanticide are carried out in belief that the female children are better off not being alive, so as to not "[suffer]".[9] Additionally, the cost of a dowry – the family's price for their daughter to be married off – is very high in India, making a female child undesirable, while a male heir would bring a dowry to the family by way of marriage. According to the British publication, The Independent, the 2011 census revealed 7.1 million fewer girls than boys aged under the age of seven, up from 6 million in 2001 and from 4.2 million in 1991. The sex ratio in the age group is now 915 girls to 1,000 boys (109 boys for every 100 girls), the lowest since records began in 1961.[10]
The honor killing and self-immolation condoned or tolerated by the Kurdish administration in Iraqi Kurdistan has been labeled as "gendercide" by Mojab (2003).[11][12]
There have been reports of femicide in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico,[13] where 411 assassinations of women were qualified as serial and/or of sexual characteristic, by domestic violence, intimate femicides and hatred against women.[14] The response to these murders has included the criminalisation of feminicide in the country.[15]
Contemporary mechanisms of gendercide lie within sexualized violence against women; the females of "sub-Saharan Africa (Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola) in areas that are also at the heart of the "AIDS belt",[16] are not only at-risk due to living in places where there are "current cases of large-scale rape",[16] but are also susceptible to contracting HIV. Less popularized tactics of gendercide against women include the systemic withholding of critical medical, and nutritional care, predominantly occurring "across the belt of "deep patriarchy" extending from East through West Asia and into Northern Africa";[17] here. Adam Jones, a co-founder of Gendercide Watch, an online research platform created to spread awareness, estimates that the denial of healthcare for women equates to approximately the same toll as that of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide per year.[17]
Over 200,000 die from bleeding, with many giving birth in buses or bullock carts. Lack of health education restricts commonplace medical knowledge; thus, bystanders are unable to offer assistance. In addition, the casualty rate from self-administered abortions is roughly 75,000. Eclampsia, a condition possible pre-, during, and post-childbirth, is characterized by seizures due to high blood pressure, and its effects kill another 75,000 through damage to the brain and kidneys. Moreover, 100,000 die from sepsis, contracted through untreated infections of the uterus and remaining fragments of the placenta that poison the bloodstream. Also, female casualties due to labor obstructions stagger around the 400,000 range.
Female genital mutilation also proves itself a form of gendercide, with at least 200 million girls and women having been cut in 31 different countries, most prominently in MENA countries.[18] The practice has shown to have both fatal immediate and long-term complications. Immediate complications include infection, bleeding, urinary problems, and long-term complications include vaginal and menstrual problems, decreased sexual satisfaction, and complications with childbirth, including the increased risk of newborn deaths.[19]
Additionally, women have historically been the victims of sexual violence, and rape has been repeatedly used as both a weapon of war, and a form of genocide. For example, "between the months of January and August of 1945," there were over "1.4 million" reported "rape cases". Subsequently, some "200,000 girls and women" died because of sexually transmitted diseases.[20][21]
Adam Jones drafted possible solutions to aid the crisis in Africa. He concluded treatment "would mean training some 850,000 health workers, according to UNICEF and World Health Organization reports, as well as [funding] the necessary drugs and equipment. The total cost would be US $200 million, about the price of half a dozen jet fighters".[17]
By region[edit]
Europe[edit]
In Europe, there are many different types of gendercide.
Most recent instances of mass gendercide in Europe have resulted from sociopolitical motions, as "military strategies". For example, during the 1999 war in Kosovo, "battle age" ethnic-Albanian men were detained and killed in mass as a part of a "Serb military strategy".[37]
Historically, from the 15th to the 18th century, girls, women, and some men fell victim to the frenzied cultural phenomena of witch-hunts. It is estimated that upwards of 100,000 trials took place, and from those trials, 60,000 individuals were executed.[38]
Individual instances of gendercide also continue to permeate European society, ranging to individual murders, honor killings, to war-related deaths.
Asia[edit]
When compared to Europe, Asia has a staggeringly different sex-ratio. In Qatar, a middle-eastern country, there are a reported 299 males for every 100 females. The ratio is primarily due to large immigrant populations of largely male temporary workers[39] or the pervading cultural sentiment of males being more desirable than females.[40] Men are seen as more useful, and women as costly burdens. Such sentiments have led to increased rates of female infanticide across the continent, especially in countries such as India.[6]
And though honor killings occur everywhere, they occur most commonly in Asian countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.[41] Experts explain that such murders are performed in order to protect the cultural concept of familial honor; things dishonorable enough to warrant such actions can range from sexuality, divorce, to gender identity.[42]
Africa[edit]
Gendercide across Africa is as ranged as any other continent. Gendercide through systematic governmental efforts have been carried out across African countries over the centuries. For example, there exists the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 were killed, and 250,000 girls and women were systematically raped by individuals infected with HIV/AIDs virus, resulting in even more death, and a continued issue with the disease even to this day.[43]
Gendercide also exists in Africa through the form of female genital mutilation–a procedure performed on both infants and girls that can result in numerous immediate and longterm complications and even death.
Similarly to Europe, witch-hunts prove a form of gendercide across Africa. It is reported that both men and women fall victim to witch-hunts, but women are more heavily targeted.[44]