Violence in China

China is the country with the most well known violence against women and children. If you have heard about violence against women, China is probably the first place you learned about. The violence in China is gendercide and forced abortion. This problem is rooted from China's strict child laws. In China, you are allowed one child. You may only have another child if your first is a girl. Than you have to fill out paperwork to try to get approved for another child. This exception to the one child rule was put in place to give families the chance to have a boy and carry on the family name. The problem with this rule is that it also costs money to apply for a second child. The other problem is that even if a family gets a second child, it may still be a girl. With the want for a boy to carry on the family name, girls are frowned upon. When a family cannot apply for another child, they will either force an abortion of the mother, or kill the girl so that they can try for a boy. This phenomenon in China is becoming a major problem. It is to the point that the male and female populations are vastly different. This problem came from the Chinese government and problems with over population in China. If something is not done about this problem, more and more innocent girls are going to die each day.

The Problem

    Violence against women and children is any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life. That is a definition about violence against omen and children from the United Nations. The root of the violence is discrimination of women. 

     Violence against women and children is a major problem in many countries including: China, Pakistan, and Somalia. The root of this problem is many years of defining women as lesser to men. This violence can include but not limited to genital mutilation, rape, murder, and physical and emotional abuse. This type of violence cannot only cause health issues but it can cause women to lose all public life do to the fear that they can be harmed at any time. Although the majority of the violence occurs in these countries and countries like it, even the United States still has issues with violence against women. The way I can help stop this violence against women around the word is to spread awareness. If people do not know about this violence, then they cannot help.