Chinese volunteers support female births
By Lisa Saremel
A new volunteering project in Beijing aims to help counter the effects of the imbalance in China and to promote gender equity. Coinciding with the United Nation's World Population Day on 11 July 2006, the Beijing program involves 200 college students returning to their home towns for the holiday period to advocate the message 'a girl is as good as a boy.'
The students will also take part in a survey on the living conditions of girls, and call for the protection of women's legal rights.
The traditional favouring of boys over girls, combined with China's one-child policy, has contributed to a significant difference in the numbers of girls born over the past 20 years.
A 2002 survey conducted in a village in Central China revealed that more than 300 of 820 women had had abortions, and more than one third admitted they were trying to select the baby's sex.
In rural areas in particular, illegal scanning to determine a baby's sex often leads to women aborting if the foetus is female. This has contributed to a ratio of 119 boys born for every 100 girls in China, and the last Census in 2000 showed there were nearly 19 million more boys than girls in the 0–15 year age group.
More information
Read World Volunteer Web's Student volunteers advocate women's rights in China
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