NEWS UPDATE: Men Arrested for Gang Rape of 5-Year-Old Girl in Delhi

June 28, 2013/in News/by itsagirl

After two months, Delhi Police has filed a chargesheet in a city court against the two men who kidnapped and brutally raped a five-year-old girl in east Delhi. Under the stringent provisions of a newly enacted law for protection of children, the men face maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

This is not an easy case to forget as it sparked public outrage against the police who refused to register the case, leading to the suspension and transfer of cops of various ranks including an ACP, caught on camera slapping a young girl who was part of a crowd protesting the incident.

Read the original blog here: https://itsagirlmovie.com/a-5-year-old-is-gang-raped-in-delhi-and-police-refuses-to-act-on-the-case/

Read the Press Times of India article through NDTV: http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/delhi-child-rape-case-charge-sheet-filed-against-two-accused-384093

China’s One Child Policy Causes Sexual Slavery – State Department Report

June 27, 2013/in News/by itsagirl

The State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP report) has downgraded China to a Tier 3 nation – a status it now shares with Iran, Sudan and North Korea. Tier 3 nations may be subject to sanctions, if approved by the U.S. President. A Chinese official responded with indignation, calling the downgrade an “arbitrary judgment.”

Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, stated, “The anger of the Chinese government against the TIP Report is misplaced. They should channel their anger toward taking effective action against traffickers, rather than against the exposure to the world of their abysmal record on human trafficking.”

The TIP Report discusses how China’s One Child Policy, combined with son preference, has caused a gender imbalance that is driving human trafficking and sexual slavery, not only within China but from the surrounding countries as well. The Report lists the many nations from which women and girls are trafficked into China: “Women and children from neighboring Asian countries, including Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, Mongolia, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), as well as from Russia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas, are reportedly trafficked to China for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor.”

The TIP Report found that, despite the prevalence of human trafficking and sexual slavery, the Chinese government’s efforts at prevention falls below minimum standards. In fact, the Report found that many state-run institutions were complicit in the trafficking: “ . . . The Chinese government did not demonstrate significant efforts to comprehensively prohibit and punish all forms of trafficking and to prosecute traffickers. The government continued to perpetuate human trafficking in at least 320 state-run institutions, while helping victims of human trafficking in only seven.”

The TIP Report further criticized the Chinese government for failing to “address the effects its birth limitation policy had in creating a gender imbalance and fueling trafficking, particularly through bride trafficking and forced marriage.”

Women’s Rights Without Frontiers commends the decision by the State Department to drop China from a Tier 2 to a Tier 3 nation. We particularly affirm the connection the TIP report draws between the One Child Policy and human trafficking. The sex-selective abortion of baby girls in China – exacerbated by the coercive low birth limit under the One Child Policy — has created a dangerous gender imbalance in which there are an estimated 37 million more men than women living in China today.

The TIP report mentions the forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees as economic migrants. Such forcible repatriation contravenes international refugee law. Moreover, young women and girls who are refugees or who are trafficked from North Korea into China may face the death penalty upon their forcible repatriation. These young North Korean sex slaves in China are among the most desperate people on earth. They can be beaten and raped with impunity. If they somehow manage to escape and report this abuse to Chinese authorities, instead of receiving help, they can be repatriated to North Korea, where they may be executed.

Littlejohn continued, “WRWF urges the Obama administration to apply appropriate sanctions against China, consistent with those allowed in the TIP Report.”

Sign a petition against forced abortion in China: http://www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org/index.php?nav=sign_our_petition

Watch a four-minute video about forced abortion in China: http://www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org/blog/?p=34

Read the United States Department of State Trafficking in Persons “TIP” Report: http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2013/

It’s a Girl Guest Blog
Contact: Reggie Littlejohn, President, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers
Email: reggielittlejohn@gmail.com
Cell: 310.592.5722
Website: www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org

Women Deliver 2013 Conference

June 7, 2013/in Documentary Updates/by itsagirl

Women Deliver is a global advocacy organization bringing together voices from around the world to call for action to improve the health and well-being of girls and women. The third global conference was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from May 28-30, 2013. This year, Women Deliver’s Cinema Corner dedicated three days to film screenings that would run parallel to the various presentations. It’s a Girl was selected to screen on the first day, and the music video for It’s a Girl featuring original music by Omekongo Dibinga screened on the third day.

If you haven’t yet seen the official It’s a Girl music video, you can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHE_3vRkpwk

We are honored for both the documentary and music video to be selected for Women Deliver Cinema Corner. However, we are also appalled that Women Deliver invited Indian politician J. S. Kurien, a man implicated in one of India’s highest profile gang-rape/sex trafficking cases of a teenage girl, to speak at their 2013 conference.

A 16-year-old school girl in the town of Suryanelli was kidnapped, held hostage for 40 days, during which she was raped by the 42 men she had been ‘sold’ to. When she was finally found, she was so battered and had lost so much blood the doctors said she wouldn’t make it. Kurien was one of the accused in this case. He was identified by face by the victim but never arrested. To read the full story click here.

Women Deliver faced loads of criticism on the web and an official Causes petition by the 50 Million Missing Campaign was created demanding an apology to the victim.

Women Deliver’s official statement:
“We were unaware that Indian Parliamentarian PJ Kurien is facing allegations of rape. While we cannot comment on the specific allegations, had we known of the controversy, we would not have permitted PJ Kurian to speak at the side event. Addressing violence against women is central to our mission as an organization and one of the focus areas of this global conference.”

Our hope is that the several thousand participants in Women Deliver conferences truly advocate women’s rights around the world and that they recognize female gendercide as one of the most pressing women’s rights issue today.

Gendercide: Inequality Towards Girls

June 3, 2013/in Exploring Gendercide/by itsagirl

Guest Blog Post provided by Navneet Gill

Nanveet is a high school student at Abbotsford Traditional Secondary School. She attended GirlKIND‘s first event and screening of It’s a Girl last September. She left the event feeling motivated and inspired. So much so, that she did an interactive presentation on the film and the issue of gendercide to her classmates, hoping to raise awareness and motivate others to react.

Nanveet is only 14 and has become an active member of GirlKIND. The following is Nanveet’s personal blog about gendercide.

“Hey mister that’s my sister shoveled in a grave, and nobody even kissed her. Hey mister that’s my sister.”

Gendercide also known as female feticide has been occurring in Asia for many years, and now spreading worldwide. Why do people look down on us girls? Why do they find us to be burdens? Have they forgotten that it was a woman who brought them into this world? I think together we need to raise awareness of Gendercide, and put an end to the cause. I, being a girl, feel the need to bring up this problem.

Every year in China and India especially, millions of girls are killed simply because they are considered a burden. Some mothers don’t even feel remorse for killing them, an example in the film {It’s A Girl} a mother in southeast India, had eight kids all of which were daughters and she killed each one with not even an ounce of regret in her body. Girls are suffocated with rice shoved down their throats, or a cloth on their mouth so they can’t breathe.

They poison them, bury them alive, leave them in trashcans or even strangle them to death. It’s happening so often doctors are starting to tell parents that the ultrasound showed a girl even if it was a boy because the doctors get paid more to do abortions. Parents are killing girls because of the dowry they have to pay for them to get married is so much higher. If they have both a girl and a boy, they boy is treated like a king and the girl like an animal. Girls who do ‘survive’ gendercide face neglect.

China has been so against girls being born that they have a ‘One-Child-Policy’ where if you have a girl the first time, you can try again for a boy. If you have a boy you can’t have any more kids. They go around villages making sure all families are following the rules. There are people who have more than one girl, but have moved away so they don’t have to suffer the consequences, while their daughters live with relatives. Without girls being born, the world is trafficking. This means that there are too many boys and not enough girls for the boys to get married, which results in no more babies being born. The UN estimates that there are about 200 million girls in the world missing, either dead or alive due to these problems. But if the kids do survive, they suffer neglect from their parents and the people around them. They are forced to do work they are not capable of doing, or they are pushed around ant not treated like a real human, sometimes punishment goes as far as death.

Some people have tried to protest against this, but are threatened by their own government, with so different types of punishments. Including sexual assault and rape. There are various homes in India for girls who don’t have a home. Some of them have “cradle programs,” whereas parents leave their daughters in a cradle compartment, which then signals inside the home that a new girl was dropped off. There are thousands of girls throughout India that are abandoned everyday just because they were born a girl. You’re probably thinking

‘My parents don’t think that’ ‘they wouldn’t ever do that to me’ but there are parents even now in Canada and the US who do this, up until today. We are blessed to be brought up in such great homes where we have people love us, who care for us.

“From a woman a man is born, so why call her bad? From her, kings are born. Without women no one would be here today.” Gendercide is a problem, spreading worldwide. Unless we try and make a change nothing will happen. People are killing girls so fast it seems like any other job. How would the parents feel if they never had the chance to live? Be the change that you want to see in your world. would you feel only being held in the arms of death?

When I first heard of gendercide I never thought it was such a big deal, I just thought ‘No one needs to do anything it’ll end, just like every other problem does’.

But after watching the documentary I realized it was a big issue, bigger than I thought. After thinking about it more I decided to ‘educate’ some of my classmates and teachers, so I put together a slideshow and presented it to the class. Using the facts from the presentation I then went along to write the speech. I never really thought that one little speech and presentation could do much in showing and education people about the smaller issues occurring worldwide. I realized that I was blessed to be brought up in a home where I was surrounded by people who love and care for me; I am blessed to not have to be going through what some girls are going through. Some people may start thinking ‘It’s true, boys do usually get special treatment’ don’t go around and start lessening your care for your boys, just make sure that every child you gave birth to or adopt is aware that you love each and every one equally, whether it be a girl or a boy.

Yes, I am only 14 and I don’t necessarily know what it’s like to have kids, but I do know that it isn’t the best feeling in the world when you feel like you aren’t loved or treated as equally as the other kids in the house.

The views expressed by guest contributors to the “It’s a Girl” blog represent the opinion of the individual author who contributes the content and should not be interpreted as being endorsed or approved by Shadowline Films. We feature these contributions to foster dialogue and exchange on gendercide and invite our readership to join the discussion.