Aborted girls and trafficked brides

[2xx1xy1JD]

CNN has a report on how the severe shortage of women in some areas of India has caused an increase in bride trafficking:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/03/world/asi ... ?hpt=hp_c4

Not a good situation for the men, and it's even worse for the women.

I had wondered, perhaps naively, whether things would improve for women with a gender imbalance. Men can't expect that the bride's family will pay a dowry if men outnumber women, and a woman might be able to have more bargaining power and demand things like spending more time with her own family, or threaten to leave if abused.

Does anyone know if there are any positive aspects, or is it mostly trafficking and violence?

[Grimalkin]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/30/opinion/c ... ?c=&page=1

This is my first attempt at posting a link hope it works!

That was a depressing article and following the links in it were worse, but found one that seemed slightly encouraging. It sais that rape and violence against women are starting to gain attention on the media, and being reported more. It seems like having a girl sucks becuase you need to pay a dowry and girls take care of thier inlaws when married. People are kidnapping them and selling them off to become slaves, so you have to worry about that too. If they get raped their families are shamed and even can affect job opportunities of the fathers. So it seems dismal. Who would want to raise a girl in that enviornment?

It seems like only wealthy girls with families that can protect them would benifit.

[jaelh]

I had wondered, perhaps naively, whether things would improve for women with a gender imbalance. Men can't expect that the bride's family will pay a dowry if men outnumber women, and a woman might be able to have more bargaining power and demand things like spending more time with her own family, or threaten to leave if abused.

Does anyone know if there are any positive aspects, or is it mostly trafficking and violence?

My experience is East, not South, Asia. But FWIW:

middle class/urban woman saw an improvement in their marriage prospects. In part, this is tied to an idea that women marry 'up' (if they can); men marry at the same level or slightly lower social class.

for poorer women: they have become a commodity; reproductive workers essentially*. Marriage migration into Korea was, at least last time I checked a few years back, in the tens of thousand a year. Indeed, weekend trips to countries like Vietnam and China, where men found a bride and married, were subsidized by the government. For many women involved, cross border marriages work out well. Some don't; and when they don't; they are horror stories. within their home countries: similarly.

*while you can employ a housekeeper to maintain you, and a sex worker for gratification, only wives can produce legitimate heirs.**

** not exclusively reproductive workers. Am employing dramatic license vis-a-vie this particular aspect of women's lives in particularly skewed countries.

[Anny Nym]

The situation is sadly not improving, even if logic implies it should/would/will be.

Because the social patterns regarding the role of women are changing not effective enough, families in general and men in particular do notice a "shortage of brides", but especially in the countyside, where law and social structure is still made and upheld by the Panchayat (<-a council of village elders) old structure don´t change.

The people will simply come up with solutions WITHIN this structures: 3 sons sharing a wife or temporal brides, who will be bought sold off again after a heir is born, for example.

Also, female babies still will be aborted or killed after birth for the sole reason they are girls and nobody expects the dowry system to change the next decades in reality.

The effects we can see today, besides the violence against women and the abuse of female children, are the phenomena of so-called "Bachelor Villages"increasing in the indian countryside. This is an interesting article from Reuters about this topic.

In 2003, Manish Jha made a very touching film about this subject:

It´s called Matrubhoomi - A Nation Without Women and you can watch the Original on Youtube (be prepared for some very graphic scenes right from the beginning)

Plot

The story begins in a rural village in Bihar, with the delivery of a baby girl to a village couple. Her disappointed father, who was hoping for a boy, drowns her in vat of milk in a public ceremony. Many years later somewhere around 2050 A.D., this unchecked trend leads to the village being populated solely by males. The now uncouth and aggressive young men of the village are desperate for wives and release their frustration through group screenings of imported pornographic films, cross-dressed dance performances, and even bestiality. They are shown to be willing to go to the lengths of human trafficking and courtship-driven emigration to procure spouses for themselves.

[Grimalkin]

I stayed up all hours getting sucked into this rabbit hole. What a depressing almost hopeless situation. I would be afraid to have a girl if I lived there. The shortage of women does not seem to make them more respected, and the rate of rape is astounding becuase they only note the ones reported. Rape is so shameful fathers commit suicide becuase of it. Oh and honor killings still happen quite a bit. Nothing like beating your sister to death with your father and cousins because she does not want to marry the man you sold her too so he could share her with his brothers.