About
Gender Bytes is an initiative of The 50 Million Missing Campaign (www.50millionmissing.info), a global campaign against female genocide in India. The aim of this blog is to raise public awareness about the systematic annihilation of more than 50 million women from India’s population in 3 generations, and the factors such as female feticide, infanticide and dowry murders that are at the root of it.
contact us at 50millionmissing@gmail.com
The 50 Million Missing Campaign was founded in December 2006 by writer and gender-activist Rita Banerji. Today it is an extensive, online, international campaign, which runs on volunteer effort and zero funds! It works steadfastly on boosting public awareness on issues concerning India’s female genocide, and spearheading action for change.
Founding Committee, Advisory Board, and Associate Organizations
An Overview Of The Campaign’s Standpoint
Media coverage of the campaign
Basic Information and Research
Gender Bytes (www.genderbytes.info) – A blog with weekly postings on a range of topics concerning female genocide. Submissions from individuals and organizations are welcomed.
Discussion Links – We have more than 170 discussion links on our flickr site. This is a platform to inform the public about issues and to engage it through dialogue. It is an open-forum, and anyone can post a new discussion topic, a question, an announcement, a comment or a link on any issue that directly connects to the campaign.
On-line Photo Gallery – This is hosted on flickr and is supported by more than 2300 photographers/artists from around the world, who have contributed more than 16000 photos of Indian girls and women to our pool. This is an online memorial to the genocide. It is a compelling visual message that millions of faces like these have been deliberately eliminated from India’s population. Our Face of The Campaign Poster is a collaborative work of 3 of the members. These photos also aid our posts on our Gender Bytes blog, and will form the basis of photo exhibitions on select topics. For eg. see these 2 exhibitions, The City of Widows and Women and Water.
Support – We run on zero funds; but if we are approached for help, we attempt to facilitate that through other organizations and professionals (lawyers or counselors). Where a case is critical and no organization is willing to take it on, as in Roopa’s case, we rally for the public to directly donate to the person in need or her family. [This was a young dowry victim whose in-laws had fed her acid. She was in a critical state and in urgent need of surgery and medical aid.] We also post some of the ongoing cases on our discussion galleries, as with Mitu (whose in-laws tried to force her to abort her twin girls) and Anshu (who was murdered for dowry within 45 days of her wedding). This enables supporters to stay updated on how these cases progress. It provides a public support forum for the victims. And it gives information/incentive to other women who may be in similar situations, but due to culturally defined norms generally choose to remain silent.
War on Dowry – The custom of Dowry is the bulls-eye target of this campaign. Our facebook group is where we post our dowry related information, cases and projects, and rally people to join in the ‘war.’
Causes – This is where we post updates on the activities of the campaign, rally support for ongoing cases and circulate requests for assistance. We encourage everyone to join!
Gender Survey – This is an ongoing project, and the pilot was conducted in 2009. The survey is designed to gauge gender-issues awareness, gender relationships, and gender-concept formation, across different sectors in India, with control studies in other countries. It aids us in defining and honing the methodologies and goals of the campaign.
GENDER EQUAL (www.genderequal.info) – A blog for global gender equality hosted by the campaign, with weekly postings of links from around the world. We regard female genocide as the most deplorable fallout of gender inequity, and attribute its persistence to the failure of the international community to establish women as equal members of the human society.
Friends’ Circle – The new posts from our blogs Gender Bytes and Gender Equal get circulated here first, immediately upon posting.
Voice of the Campaign – We actively seek supporters to give talks on the campaign in their local towns. We specifically want to address high school, college and university students, and women’s and human rights groups. We also invite volunteers to create U-tube videos in different languages, to post online.
Language Sites – We will soon launch our Portuguese language site, and invite people to contact us, who are interested in setting up and coordinating our campaign sites in Indian and other European languages.
THE 5 TOP-PRIORITY GOALS OF THE CAMPAIGN ARE:
1. To make public the scale of this disaster. Our pilot survey indicates that, even though there is a general awareness of the issues pertaining to female genocide, the public is largely uninformed about the actual scale of this crisis, and/or is in denial of it.
2. To lobby for the international recognition of this gender-specific mass elimination as “genocide” under the 1948 U.N. Convention on Genocide Act.
3. To spearhead forceful, liable and result-based action through government, police and judiciary on laws pertaining to female feticide, infanticide, dowry, and dowry murders.
4. To have the government of India commit to a time-line within which India’s female genocide will be contained, and the gender ratio will normalize.
5. To arouse public consciousness and moral accountability for this genocide globally, and urge community based action for justice and change.
thank you !
I am unquestionably bookmarking this blog and sharing it with my friend, thank you nice blog
If you are refering to the rural areas, I still can’t believe this. I have been in Bombay all my life, and in my whole career of 40 years, only 2 girls died at the age of 23-24, they were in my college. Other than that, old women, and that too only one. I don’t know a single woman, girl, sister, friend etc who has seen even one death in her family of any other woman in our social circle.
You probably live on a different planet Neha! What can we say?
im with the CAMPAIGN on this one. ive been watching south asia newsline for almost 3 years now and every time they show a film of a street in India you can see a lot more men than women. even some streets in Iraq have more women. there it just depends on the security situation. in India however evey street in every city clearly shows that women are missing. even in cities with good security such as new delhi you see far more men on the street than women. so Neha you must be blind or somthing to not see it every time you leave your house!