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India: Looking for the missing girls

The BBC had an article on a report in the Lancet Journal about India which stated that prenatal selection and selective abortion was causing the loss of 500,000 girls a year. We've always known that preference for a male child has meant that girls do not get as good an education, diet or opportunity as their male siblings, however the sheer number of sex-selective abortions is staggering. While India is the country in question, the problem extends to the rest of South Asia as well.

Sepia Mutiny links to the article and there is an excellent discussion via comments on the post. What is interesting is that somewhere the discussion turns to the Pro-Choice argument, and a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy as it seems to clash with the ban on sex-selective abortions. Uma at IndianWriting adds more information to the discussion by linking to some statistics on the sex ratios around the world.

Pickled Politics has an excellent post on the issue.

It’s worth noting that many hospitals in the UK, America and Canada (amongst others) have opted to deny prospective parents information about the sex of their baby. Of course, living in the West it isn’t hard to find someone who will carry out a test. Several of the UK and Canadian centres have specifically mentioned Asian communities as the reason for their decisions to stop screening for sex.

Meanwhile, an active discussion is also ongoing at the LiveJournal Feminist Community on the same issue with emphasis on the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life aspects. As a generous plug, I have a post on this issue as well at Within / Without. There's quite a lot of discussion at the celebrity IntentBlog.

What is sad is that education actually increased the abortion rate… Is this linked to more access to ultrasounds? Probably so. The report mentions socio-economic factors, but notes religion didnt make a difference.

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African Women Blogging This Week

Nish Matenjwa · 10:31 · Sub-Saharan Africa

Heri ya Mwaka Mpya (Happy New Year in Kiswahili).

The recent the jailing of a 56-year old English man in the UK for the sexual abuse of children in Africa is a good thing, Black Looks writes. She is however, concerned that the arrest of this vile individual remains an isolated case in Africa because ’millions of children are being abused in this way whilst the number of prosecutions is relatively small’.

In coming to terms with her addiction which is reading books and business magazines, kamundulio has come to the realisation that this addiction is based on the need for information. She writes about how she will ensure she buys a book no ‘matter how expensive the book is' and is seeking help with her addiction.

Free or cheap contraceptives are available for many Kenyans and yet some women and men continue to put themselves in harms way with regard to sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, writes au lait in a frank and plain speaking article entitled No Glove, No Love.

One African Woman writes about the pressure on black women who have risen to positions of prominence to be successful because they have been made
’representative of all women, carrying the fate of every woman in their hands’. If they fail, they are ‘letting down all women’ and ‘bringing shame on all women’ thus robbing these women ‘right to be wrong sometimes’ and ‘the right not to be perfect’.

Mama JunkYard writes a cautionary tale about how the e-mail address containing her domain name has been spoofed and details in frustration the steps she has taken to deal with e-mail spoofing – a phenomenon she says is ’is baffling business everywhere’ .

Mama Wangari who has recently gone back to work after having a baby, writes about the difficulties that have arisen between her partner and herself in an article entitled Motherhood's a Breeze.

In a New Year resolution, Wambui, who at 16 is the youngest member of the Kenyan Blogs Webring, has decided to ’publicly get involved in the fight against poverty and AIDS’. Well done, Wambui and best of luck.

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A controversy-filled week in Bahrain

Mahmood Al-Yousif · 04:03 · Middle East & North Africa

I think that the name Jihad Al-Khazin (arabic list) has become the most popular name within the Arab blogosphere this past week, as most blogs in the region have concentrated on his controversial article (arabic) attacking the very popular Religious Policeman cloaked in the guise of an attack on the credibility of anonymous blogging, making the assumption that only known authors have credibility. Needless to say that some of the responses to this article were for, while others against his assumptions. Some bloggers expressed their sadness at such a supposedly respected journalist employment of what they regard as questionable sources on which Mr. Al-Khazin based the cornerstone of his article, robbing it from whatever authenticity it might have had.

Both Haitham and Mahmood in Bahrain have tackled this subject and have received more than average comments which shows the level of divisiveness this subject garners, and the jury is still out as to what constitutes authenticity in blogs in general.

Another controversy (yes, Bahrain has certainly had its fair share last week!) is the appearance of one of the leaders of women's movement, Ms. Ghada Jamsheer, on an international television interview in which she lambasted the archaic interpretation of various forms of marriages in Islam and didn't even stop short of labeling those methods as wrong! A classification which instantly put the lady on irreligious grounds by extremists, to which she is not unfamiliar as she was called a heretic before by mosque preachers and others. She stood by what she said however which elated Mahmood on the one hand, and got Mohammed Al-Maskati whose excellent blog, emoodZ, to question what Ms. Jamsheer said in that interview, sending him to research whether the subjects raised were truthful. He was – as most people were – surprised and disgusted by his findings.

A third controversy is the tit-for-tat accusations by the chairman of the Accident & Emergency department at Salmaniya Medical Complex, the main hospital in Bahrain, against some of his staff, and vice versa, on mismanagement and glaring malpractice cases in that department going as far as accusing some doctors of smuggling prostitutes into wards during night shifts. Silly Bahraini Girl takes up the story with a humorous twist. On a more serious note however, the chairman of the A&E department and some of the doctors in question have been suspended from duty (arabic) yesterday pending a Ministry of Health investigation into this fiasco.

Wait, wait, there is a final controversy! 15 parliamentarians signed a memo demanding an official apology from the embattled Minister of Information who publicly stated during questioning at the Shura Council - the appointed upper house of parliament - that some of those members of the House of Representatives (elected members) who supported him in shutting down alcohol-serving bars during the holy month of Ramadhan do actually drink! Purportedly using this fact to solidify his position on the correctness of closing those businesses during Ramadhan. It doesn't look like that apology will be forthcoming any time soon as some of those signatories have withdrawn their signatures citing political gerrymandering, threats and promises by the minister of information, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that politics is politics, regardless of where it is practiced.

The ongoing saga of the Christmas-day riots at the Bahrain International Airport continues with families and supporters of those apprehended in those riots themselves going on demonstrations demanding their unconditional release as reported and witnessed by Chan'ad Bahraini. Needless to say, there were confrontations by these demonstrators and the police, some of whom have apparently used excessive force to cow demonstrators, as reported by the dissolved Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.

On more mundane news covered by Bahraini bloggers (phew!) Silveroo brings us a news snippet which dealt with a novel identity theft, in which a female University of Bahrain student covered herself up completely from head-to-toe wearing an abaya and a niqab (a “ninja” as she calls them!) and submitting a final notice of withdrawal from the university to the Registrar in another female student's name! Needless to say that when that was discovered, and the perpetrator identified, the guilty woman was expelled forthwith.

Silveroo brings up other issues connected with the misuse of the niqab and blames the Cabinet for passing that particular “retarded” law which allows fully covered women to drive, a decision which gave rise to more misuse; she says that some males have used that dress to mount a crime wave and enter women-only venues all due to the impossibility of knowing who actually is hiding behind that cover.

Two new blogs, exclusively in Arabic, have joined the burgeoning ranks of the Bahraini blogosphere: Ali7, a university student, whose first action is to send a letter to the most popular Arabic newspaper in Bahrain, Al-Wasat, attacking the Ministry of Information for basically, well, their incompetence in technological knowledge, less than effective coordination with the main ISP on the island and their priorities. The ministry has decided to block 15 pornographic sites which they claim to emanate from Bahrain, however Ali derides the ministry for not doing enough, as closing just those 15 sites is minuscule compared to the millions of other easily accessable pornographic sites from Bahrain, and alludes that all that the ministry is doing is in reality blocking political dissension sites disguising their operation which they describe as “guarding the Bahraini culture and norms.”

The other new blog, again in Arabic, is by Tawfeeq Al-Rayyash who is a political activist and running for election to the Steering Committee's Board of Directors of the largest political society in Bahrain, Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society. Tawfeeq also runs Montadayat Al-Bahrain (Bahrain Fora), one of the most popular news and fora sites on the island. His blog primarily concentrates on local and international political issues of the day.

The Joker provides us with relief from politics however, in listing what he believes are very underrated music bands mostly from the 80s. While Strav comments on the recent moves by Google to take Microsoft head-on in what promises to be a good fist-fight!

As the Muslim world will be celebrating Eid Al-Ad'ha tomorrow, which marks the culmination of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, we wish you all a very happy and auspicious Eid from all of us in Bahrain.

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