Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael)

Like many others, I compliment Senator Mullen on tabling this motion. It is very brave. We live in the world, not just Ireland. We must be concerned about human rights issues and how we can advance societies.

I will reiterate many of the facts which fellow Senators have highlighted already. I put it to Senator Rónán Mullen that I would be delighted if he would agree to consider withdrawing the motion, just for today, until we can reach cross-party consensus in the House. I have no wish to be forced into a situation where because of the party political system I must vote against the Senator's motion when I agree completely with almost every line of it and what it is calling on us to do, that is, to bring diplomatic pressure to bear on the governments of various states, in particular China and India, which either promote gendercide or tolerate the problems experienced within their borders. The Senator is right to ask us to raise the issue of gendercide at United Nations and European Union level and perhaps with the Irish Human Rights Commission to determine how it could bring pressure to bear. We want to do business with countries which have human rights issues such as China and India. What better way to advance human rights than to do business with them, whereby we can share and learn about how we interact and live? The Senator is to be complimented on the motion and I do not say as much lightly.

Let us consider some of the facts. The first time I came across this issue was when I was dealing with the matter of adoption. The Senator who spoke last said the same. I have adopted abroad, as I have said in the House more than once. We adopted a little girl from Romania. I was there in 2000 and recall that they mainly had boys to adopt because they were keeping the girls. Foreign adoptions were common at the time and this remains the case, as it is our only means of adopting children. However, when we look towards China, those involved are allowing girls to die. I condemn in the strongest terms the practice of selective abortion based on the use of ultrasound and other technologies that identify the sex of the foetus. It is dreadful that little girls are lined up in orphanages, fatally neglected and allowed to die when many families throughout the world would give anything to have a child. Although the practice is not confined to the countries to which I have referred, what happens to families in these countries who have difficulty in conceiving but who eventually fall pregnant and find out it is a girl? How can we, as an upstanding nation, say this policy is fair, right or just? It is not. For this reason and many others, I totally support what Senator Rónán Mullen said. The practice happens more widely because, traditionally, girls earn less than boys and there is evidence that boys can engage in more physical labour which is considered to be especially needed in some of the countries mentioned. In the long term this is needed to stall population growth and, for cultural reasons, the ancient preference has been to have boys.

Let us consider what the position is today. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in 2010 there were between 30 and 40 million more men under the age of 19 years than girls. Marriage and having children are considered to be the norm in the countries mentioned, but there is a lack of girls. Some of the programmes I have seen from China show men aged between 40 and 50 years living in isolated areas with no possibility of finding a partner. This has led to crime, isolation and violence among young men. Crime levels have doubled in China in the past 20 years. The social consequences include the trafficking of women and prostitution, as well as bride abductions which are rampant. As my colleague, Senator Cáit Keane, noted, people of all classes are buying into this mindset. If we are genuinely interested in promoting human rights and wish to ensure that at a human level there are no borders, we have an obligation to condemn the practice of gendercide, infanticide and fatal neglect. We must realise that in the long run it is not good not society that children are killed.

Interestingly, a law was enacted in 2004 in China prohibiting sex-selective abortions but because this has become such an embedded cultural issue, the law has been widely ignored by the Chinese public. I appeal again to Senator Rónán Mullen, to whom I take off my hat. He has brought forward a motion that has challenged me and most other Members. I call on him to consider withdrawing the motion in order that we can reach an all-party consensus. In this way we could achieve a good deal in the House. On most days we want it to be a house of solutions.