India
India: Doctors turn baby girls into boys through genitoplasty
Girls are being 'converted' into boys in Indore - by the hundreds every year - at ages where they cannot give their consent for this life-changing operation.
This shocking, unprecedented trend, catering to the fetish for a son, is unfolding at conservative Indore's well-known clinics and hospitals on children who are 1-5 years old. The process being used to 'produce' a male child from a female is known as genitoplasty. Each surgery costs Rs 1.5 lakh.
Moreover, these children are pumped with hormonal treatment as part of the sex change procedure that may be irreversible.
India: Child marriages reduced through regional government UNICEF Program
HYDERABAD: Kiran Kumar Reddy may have made for a pretty picture helping a girl child write at a government school in Ameerpet, but it is in the distant revenue division of Adoni in Kurnool district that a real revolution is actually unfolding. Revenue officials here have stopped a whopping 400 child marriages in less than two months.
In a crackdown unseen earlier, officials spearheaded an anti-child marriage campaign along with other government departments and across the 17 mandals of Adoni. The result: this wedding season at Adoni saw fewer child marriages than the previous years.
India: Top court urges death penalty for honor killings, calling them ‘slur on our nation’
NEW DELHI — India’s top court recommended the death penalty for perpetrators of “honor killings,” calling the practice barbaric and feudal in a ruling cheered Tuesday by activists who hope it will inspire opposition to a crime seen as anathema to a democratic nation.
Most victims were young adults who fell in love or married against their families’ wishes. In some cases, village councils ordered couples killed who married inside their clan or outside their caste. While there are no official figures, an independent study found around 900 people were killed each year in India for defying their elders.
India: Supreme court calls for 'stamping out honour killing'
India's Supreme Court has told states to "ruthlessly stamp out" the so-called honour killings. The court also warned that senior officials who failed to act against the offenders would be prosecuted. In recent times, there have been many cases where people have been ostracised or killed for defying age-old notions of tradition and family honour.
India: Haryana widows battered to death
Two widows have been bludgeoned to death by a man in the northern Indian state of Haryana, officials say. Police arrested a 23-year-old man, the nephew of one of the women. He was on parole, having served a sentence for rape.
Eyewitnesses told police he killed his aunt and another woman in full view of other villagers, after he accused them of being in a lesbian relationship.
India: Sons Preferred by Couples, Served by Bangkok Clinics
NEW DELHI: Aamita from Delhi has a dark secret. Last year, without telling family or friends, she boarded a plane to Thailand to undergo IVF treatment. A mother of two girls by then, Aamita was perfectly fertile and would have had no problem conceiving again. But she wanted a boy.
Gender selection is illegal in India, but a growing number of women like Aamita are finding a way round the ban by going to Thailand where there are no laws against it.
Combatting Acid Violence in Bangladesh, India and Cambodia
Acid violence involves intentional acts of violence in which perpetrators throw, spray, or pour acid onto victims’ faces and bodies. This Report examines acid violence in Bangladesh, India, and Cambodia from an international human rights
perspective. Using this framework, it identifies the causes of acid violence and suggests practical solutions to address them. Acid violence is prevalent in these countries because of three related factors: gender inequality and discrimination, the easy availability of acid, and impunity for acid attack perpetrators.
India: Tribal Girl's Courage Award after Harassment & Torture
.thumbnail.jpg "Sunita Murmu with the Welfare Home Superintendent (Credit: Saadia Azim\WFS)")
Birbhum (Women's Feature Service) - Sixteen-year-old Sunita Murmu is quite the celeb in her locality these days. This teenager had the courage to approach the remote Mohammadbazar police station in Birbhum, one of West Bengal's most backward districts, and lodge a complaint against the powerful criminal elements from within her community. Of course, she did not stop there - young Sunita also ensured that these men were arrested for sexually harassing, torturing and ostracising her.
India: Village bans unmarried women from using cell phones
An Indian village has banned unmarried women from using for fear they will arrange forbidden marriages that are often punished by death, a local official said today.
The Lank village council decided unmarried boys could use mobile phones, but only under parental supervision, said one council member, Satish Tyagi. Local women's rights group criticised the measure as backward and unfair.
Guidelines and Activities for a unified approach to sexuality, gender, HIV, and Human Rights Education
It's All One Curriculum, was developed by an international working group comprised of CREA (India), Girl's Power Initiative (Nigeria), International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), IPPF/Western Hemisphere Region, International Women's Health Coalition, Mexfam (Mexico), and the Population Council.