Reading the BBC web site, wondering why Australia never see,s such story's in print.
India it tells has millions of missing female children.
Hints they are dead,unwanted in a country that values sons.
And this morning in a WA paper another story, Child sex slavery ,girls being bought and transported from Nepal in to India as young as 8 fora life in the sex trade.
Just how can humanity except this.
Why is it we do not ever hear about this in our country.
Not targeting any one country ,over half the women in the world in my view are treated as second class humans.
But why do we not talk about it more.
Is there some fear India may be offended and our trade hurt.
Do we truly care about the dreadful life some women lead is equality just a word?

Belly just one point regarding the oppression of women in India, the Indian family is as matriarchal as it is patriarchal. The vast majority of mistreated wives in the Indian family structure is generated from the elder matriarchs of that family not the patriarchs, they don't like the daughter in law for personal or practical reasons (the practical usually having to do with money via dowry or other inter family feudalism). It is not always the blokes who want to oppress women and devalue the worth of the female child in the family; the grandma also values male children over female for reasons of cash flow.

Well I don't really care that much, and yes equality is a word. Word is a word too.

I have learned over the years that different cultures have their own way of organising things, and an outsiders view is about as useful as a bycicle to a fish.

I also have learned that appropriating the hardships of poor people for a gender cause for middle class women in western countries is in really poor taste.

I don't like women being treated badly, but I don't see why it's any more horrific than men being treated badly, and I get sick of the assertion that is constantly made that whenever a woman is treated badly, it's BECAUSE she's a woman and it's all mens fault.

So, sure, stop trading with India, but then stop trading with America too because 95% of their prison inmates are black males.

Poor men are forced into the US armed forces, poor women are forced to work as prostitiutes, men are conscripted into armies, men die younger, women are raped, men live on the streets and suicide more often, women in Africa get their genitals mutilated and men are recruited at 8 years old to kill and be killed and fight lions to prove their manhood.

Such is the world. I stay more sane by accepting my impotence in the face of it all and enjoying my priveledged existance as a part of the machine that at least seems to avoid the most icky stuff.

You can throw money at it, you can make yourself feel better by shouting about it as much as you lke, but people are people, and especially when other cultures are involved you'll never really understand or change anything.

I predict in 2080 people will still be arguing about palestine, African tribes will still be raping and slauightering each other and 6 year old Asian girls will still be sex slaves

Many cruelties to people would probably be solved if a drug was invented to cure greed.

Nah Bellybabe, women are not equal. It’s very hard finding someone who is considered and treated equal to someone else. I can’t think of a culture that has treated the genders equally past or present and I’m not expecting it anytime soon.

But should everyone be treated equal – doesn’t that have some weird pendulum affect that negatively impacts the exceptional peoples?

And I’d like Aussie to sort out its own cruelty to children before taking on the rest of the world.

Attitudes about women in some of these countries are negative and all too pervasive. In regard to the comments about matriarchs, as is often the case in oppressive cultures, the oppressed can sometimes become the oppressors.

The latest news brought a story about a woman in Saudi Arabia who has been twice arrested for driving a car. It is apparently illegal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia and she is protetsting the ban.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/16/2275232.htm

Another woman in Pakistan is failing to get justice for having acid thrown in her face because she refused a marriage proposal. Acid attacks are fairly common.

http://www.faithfreedom.org/articles/women-in-islam/horror-stories-of-acid-attacks-on-women-in-pakistan/

It is this sort of prejudice against women that makes our Western concerns in regard to CEO roles or quotas on Boards pale by comparison.

However, change is best obtained through internal resistance than perceived interference from outside. External assistance can come in many ways that might benefit like providing refuges and safe havens but in the long term it will take political struggle and dissent, unless common decency eventually prevails through modernisation and education.

I am more than disappointed that it seems a lessor crime to some if its mum in law harming the wife and not the husband.
The BBC story spoke of 7 million known female births, and that those 7 million are no longer alive.
I too express my disheartened response to a poster I think has intelligence saying it is not our business.
The story about importing young girls, some Children from Nepal, to sexually serve 25 men a day is shattering.
Not our business?
Then the sooner humanity ceases to exist the better.
In country's that value boys more than girls, to the extent of killing female children, we are going to see massive impacts.
Apart from the shear brutality and inhumanity,such country's will see a need for wives change its very blood lines as women from other country's are bought in to wed, maybe by force.
If we except females are lessor beings we must except man is too.
People forced to be sex slaves burnt to death while alive and killed for dishonoring a family.
Bought and sold for sex as a child.
The UN is in Lybia to protect human life but blind to its members acts.