Comments on: Violence against women – Lancet style

By: shivers

shivers — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:27:08 +0000

Those numbers are large, but one wonders if guest workers can really account entirely for the difference though. While today, China overall may well have 108 male adults per 100 female adults, that figure is set to change with a rising number of surplus males. In 2004 Mainland China’s sex ratio at birth was 120.5 boy births per 100 girl births, while the province Jiangxi is 137.1 (Guilmoto, 2009). While sex ratio at birth is a bit different to counting the number of adult males and females, it shows that sex-selective abortions still are being practiced. Figures from India are pretty much the same. This means that China and India have rising numbers of surplus men, and since China and India’s populations are so big that the demographics from these two countries has the ability to influence the world-wide population demographics, the figure of 102 men for every 100 women worldwide is set to change. Since sex selected abortions are carried out across a range of Asian countries, I wouldn’t be quick to dismiss the idea that it occurs in the Middle East.

Ref: Guilmoto, C. Z., 2009, ‘The Sex Ratio Transition in Asia’, Population and Development Review, 35 (3).

By: Mark @ Israel

Mark @ Israel — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:27:09 +0000

Violence against women is not suppossed to happen especially in the bonds of marriage but it seems that marriage has become a license for Palestinian men to become violent to Palestinian women. This is a very sad situation for women who have sacrificed their own happiness to take care of their husband and children. We should understand this because we all have mothers.

By: Gary Rosen

Gary Rosen — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:03:58 +0000

I agree with Eric. The countries with the largest ratios are smaller countries with significant oil fields where I imagine it is easy for guest workers to overwhelm the local population.

“Saudi Arabia is more reasonable …”

Now you didn’t really mean that, did you?

By: Eric J

Eric J — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:39:01 +0000

Not to defend the Gulf Arabs, but ratios like that can’t be coming from infanticide. Those numbers must include non-citzen “guest workers” the majority of whom are male. (Saudi Arabia is more reasonable, because lots of their guest workers are cleaning women and other domestics.)

By: Pamela

Pamela — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:43:17 +0000

Cowards the lot of them.