A woman in China had 23 sewing needles stuck into her brain through the soft spot in her head while still a tiny baby. Her grandparents attempted to kill her because they wanted a boy and China has a strict one child policy.
Girls are viewed as “maggots in the rice” and are seen as nothing but money leaving the family. While a boy is seen as his parent’s pension plan and is expected to take care of his parents in their old age.
The Chinese government has prevented 400 million births since the one child policy, with many of those births being girls. Many girl babies are simply killed by their families and flung on garbage heaps, that is if they are allowed to be born at all. Abortion is another way many tiny girl babies are disposed of.
It makes me sick just thinking of this! How anyone could kill a precious baby is beyond my comprehension. There are so many people right here in America who would welcome a child into their lives. It is a very sad, sick situation.
In China there are now 18 million more men than marriageable women! What will they do? I think they will find out how important women really are, and that women fulfill a very important role in society.
As for that poor woman with the needles in her head,,,the rest of her story is below. She is now a 29 year old woman with some very serious health problems. I cannot imagine someone sticking sewing needles in a baby’s soft spot. And, what I wonder about is how many other women and girls are suffering right now from the same treatment or something even worse??
As a country we should be doing something about the human rights of these tiny victims. We should cherish all life, all life is precious.
Please pray for the women and girls in China!
China's one-child policy: doctors discover 23 sewing needles in woman's head
London Independent September 12, 2007
Clifford Coonan
Luo Cuifen knew something was wrong when she went to the doctor after finding blood in her urine, but nothing could have prepared her for the discovery of 23 sewing needles, which doctors believe were stuck deep into her as a baby by her grandparents.
Doctors suspect they wanted to kill her because her family preferred a son. Some of the needles were pushed into the fontanelle, the soft spot on the head all babies have before the bones knit. Ms Cuifen, now 29, was a second granddaughter, leaving the family no chance to produce a treasured boy child.
Under the one-child policy, most families are limited to one offspring, but in the countryside, people may be allowed to have a second if their first is a girl.
The needles are about an inch long, and X-rays show they have worked their way into her lungs, liver, bladder and kidneys, making removal difficult, said Qu Rui, a spokesman for the Richland International Hospital in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. More than 20 surgeons and doctors from China, Canada and the United States, experts in disciplines from gynaecology toneurology, are to operate to try to remove the first six needles today.
Over the years, Ms Luo has suffered from inexplicable anxiety and insomnia, as well as depression. At times, the needles would emerge from strange wounds on her body. Ms Luo's grandparents are dead and there was no indication as to whether there would be an investigation.
There is a strong cultural bias in rural China against baby girls, sometimes known as "maggots in the rice". There is a saying that "raising a daughter is like watering someone else's fields", a sign of how deep-rooted the pro boy bias is. Boys carry on the family name but, for a girl, families need to find a dowry when she marries into someone else's family.
And having a son is the closest thing to a pension plan most rural Chinese will have: sons are supposedly better able to provide for the family and support their elderly parents. Because of the prejudice against girls, the increasingly mobile nature of Chinese society and the pressures of the one-child policy, many women do not report their pregnancies and if the child is a girl, they kill the baby.
Thousands of baby girls are abandoned every year, some on rubbish heaps. Others end up in the "dying rooms" of orphanages where they die of neglect, although the government has said it is cracking down on this.
There are 37 million more men than women in China, the most unbalanced gender ratio in the world. This skewed ratio has worsened since China introduced the one-child policy 30 years ago to curb population growth, making abortion a widely used method of family planning, and sometimes infanticide. The government reckons it has prevented 400 million births.
Official figures show there are 119 boys reported born for every 100 girls. The ratio in industrialised countries is 105 boys for every 100 girls. The gender gap raises the prospect of millions of men unable to find a wife, risking antisocial and violent behaviour. There are already 18 million more men than marriageable women. Gender scanning of a foetus is illegal in China but the regulation does not spell out punishments, so a black market flourishes, with scans costing £3.40 if it is a boy and £2 for a girl.
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