Gendercide International Resource Center

2003

The term gendercide allows a theoretical breakthrough in understanding violence against women. The case of Kurdistan shows that patriarchal violence cannot be reduced to the action of a single male person, although such individual acts certainly occur on a large scale. Also, women are not always targeted as individuals. Gendercide offers a crucial conceptual opening by emphasizing mass violence against women as a matter of policy by the state, by non-state communities, by religious establishments, and/or by the military at war.In Iraqi Kurdistan, the honor killing and self-immolation condoned or tolerated by the Kurdish administration may be viewed as gendercide or _conditions of gendercide. These forms of violence cannot be adequately explained within the framework of current conceptualizations of "violence against women." The concept gendercide thus allows a refinement of the 1948 UN Convention on thePrevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by adding a gender element to the definition of the term. Article II of the Convention defines genocide as: any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, radal or religious groups, as such: Killing members of the group;Causing serious bodily or mental harm to the members of the group;Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physic cal destruction in whole in part .The concept gendercide adds gender to "national, ethnical, racial or religious groups." It offers fresh opportunities for activism to prevent gendercide, for policy making, and for theorization of state and nation-building.

19 DEC 2007

In the midst of a genetic revolution in medicine, Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) has become a well-established technique to help infertile women achieve pregnancy. But many women are now turning to ART not just to circumvent infertility, but consciously to shape their families by determining the sex of their children. Many patriarchal cultures have a gender preference for males and to date have used technological advances in reproductive medicine to predetermine the sex of the child being born. Women have sought sex-selective abortions, where the pregnancy was being terminated solely on the basis of the sex of the unborn fetus. The combination of ART advances and gender preference has led to the disappearance of at least 100 million girls from the world's population leading to a mass gendercide. This article examines the societal impact of unbalanced gender ratios and the need to regulate sex selection to avoid nations of bachelors.

2011

We describe a Bayesian projection model to produce countryspecific projections of the total fertility rate (TFR) for all countries. The model decomposes the evolution of TFR into three phases: pre-transition high fertility, the fertility transition, and post-transition low fertility. The model for the fertility decline builds on the United Nations Population Division’s current deterministic projection methodology, which assumes that fertility will eventually fall below replacement level. It models the decline in TFR as the sum of two logistic functions that depend on the current TFR level, and a random term. A Bayesian hierarchical model is used to project future TFR based on both the country’s TFR history and the pattern of all countries. It is estimated from United Nations estimates of past TFR in all countries using aMarkov chainMonte Carlo algorithm. The post-transition low fertility phase is modeled using an autoregressive model, in which long-term TFR projections converge toward and oscillate around replacement level. The method is evaluated using out-of-sample projections for the period since 1980 and the period since 1995, and is found to be well calibrated.

Mar 6, 2012

When Asians migrated to Western countries they brought welcome recipes for curries and dim sum. Sadly, a few of them also imported their preference for having sons and aborting daughters. Female feticide happens in India and China by the millions, but it also happens in North America in numbers large enough to distort the male to female ratio in some ethnic groups.1–4 Should female feticide in Canada be ignored because it is a small problem localized to minority ethnic groups? No. Small numbers cannot be ignored when the issue is about discrimination against women in its most extreme form. This evil devalues women. How can it be curbed? The solution is to postpone the disclosure of medically irrelevant information to women until after about 30 weeks of pregnancy.

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2007

Sex-selection technology is a multi-headed hydra of medical breakthroughs, societal problems, genetic mysteries, and ethical quandaries. Identifying approaches to deal with the old and new sex-selection technologies will prove to be a challenge at the state, national, and international level for years to come. In searching for ways to ameliorate the extant and potentially negative effects of sex selection, it is important to strike a balance between the autonomy of the individual—whether parent, family member, or doctor—and the welfare of society as a whole. In the U.S., comprehensive legislation should be enacted to eliminate the potential for harmful sex-selection practices and to manage ethically new sexselection technology. In India, China, and other parts of Asia, effective sexselection practices will include enforcement mechanisms for existing anti-sexselection laws coupled with incentive programs for families with daughters and improved educational access for women. While such plans are currently necessary to begin curbing the troubling tide of non-medical sex selection, they can be only partially effective. A true change in the practice can be achieved only by confronting the deep, societal roots of gender preference. 154. Remaley,

The People's Movement for Human Rights Education (PDHRE)

Includes excerpts from the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Internatio nal Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Internatio nal Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

2003 Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights

Facilitator Guide to teaching about Gender violence - At the end of this session, participants will be able to: - Define gender-based violence. - Identify different types and sites of gender-based violence, its main victims and perpetrators. - Discuss what gender-based violence is and why it is a violation of women’s human rights. - Analyze gender-based violence from the women’s human rights perspective.