MISSING WOMEN AND THE BACHELOR TIME BOMB
Today, Asia is "missing" 170 million women. The fight for women as tradable commodities has begun.
Asia is "missing" 170 million women because parents are choosing to give birth to boys and aborting daughters. This "gendercide" is the result of politically motivated population control policies imposed by the West more than 30 years ago. Today, millions of men of marriageable age are unable to find wives and more than ever before women are being traded like commodities. In China, mothers who were once expected to abort female foetuses are today desperately advertising their sons at marriage markets. In India, villagers who refuse to give birth to daughters themselves are pooling their money to buy a bride at auctions to marry one man but also serve other bachelors in the village. With the growing surplus of men, crime rates are rising and threatening the internal stability of these nations. Scientists expect other regions like Africa and the Arab world to follow suit as sex determination technology becomes ubiquitous and affordable. We are facing a humanitarian crisis which some scientists believe may threaten world peace. Zoning in on personal stories from South Korea, China, India and Vietnam, the film explores the regional and global consequences of this gender imbalance in Asia. With previously unseen archive material and eyewitness reports, the film also looks back at the years after the Second World War and examines the dubious role of international organisations and their influence on worldwide family planning. A revelatory documentary that weaves together elements of politics, economics and medicine, showing women – both then and now – as the plaything of political and criminal interest groups.
copyright pictures: Antje Christ and Dorothe Dörholt