Michael Mullins (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, and wish her well in her new post. I commend Senator Rónán Mullen for moving the motion to highlight an appalling abuse of dignity and human rights. I was not familiar with the term, gendercide, until I started to carry out research for this debate. Senators Rónan Mullen and Feargal Quinn have done the House a service by preparing the motion and giving the issue the publicity it deserves.

Gendercide involves the practice of selective abortion, infanticide and the fatal neglect of baby girls which is an unspeakable crime for any right thinking person. In the course of my research I came across statistics which demonstrate the appalling scale of the abuse. Time magazine, The Economist and other reputable publications are to be complimented on highlighting this awful practice.

In an article in Time magazine, Maura Elizabeth Cunningham wrote:

Largely as a result of sex-selective abortions, Asia today is short of 160 million women [or 30 times the population of Ireland]. They have disappeared silently over several decades, but their absence can be seen in classrooms filled with boys, in huddles of bachelors on city streets and in higher rates of bride trafficking and prostitution elicited by growing numbers of sexually frustrated men.

It is disturbing, as Ms Cunningham notes, that some countries:

viewing smaller populations as a path to economic development, encourage (or enforce) lower birthrates - and couples having fewer children will, in many cases, do anything to ensure that those children are boys. "Anything" means sex-selective abortion on a massive scale.

The motion and the Government's amendment can unite Members in promoting human dignity. The Government condemns in the strongest possible terms all violations of the rights of women and girls. It is proactive in supporting the efforts being made at international level to combat all forms of gender based violence and will keep raising these matters at UN and EU level. Long-term questions arise for those who think reproductive matters should be reduced to an issue of choice. The problem of gendercide shows where certain choices can lead if they are endorsed or tolerated by entire nations and cultures. The widespread killing of baby girls is a terrible injustice, but it also risks causing major economic and social problems in societies in which gendercide is apparent. I understand that in India high murder rates are to be found not in the poorest regions but in areas with the largest imbalances in sex ratios. This leads to problems of human trafficking, as thousands, perhaps millions, of men unable to find life partners become a risk to society. Thousands of women from Vietnam have been smuggled into China to work as prostitutes or be sold into marriages.

I hope this is the first of many debates on this issue. I will be supporting the Government's amendment, but I thank Senators Rónán Mullen and Feargal Quinn for raising the issue. The support they have received from different quarters of the House demonstrates there is widespread agreement on the matter. In supporting the Government amendment, I look forward to having a more detailed and thorough debate on this matter in this House in the future.