The scale of the women problem in India

Nevil Gibson writes in NBR:

New research by economists Siwan Anderson and Debraj Ray estimates that in India, more than 2m women are missing in a given year.

The economists found that roughly 12% of the missing women disappear at birth, 25% die in childhood, 18% at the reproductive ages, and 45% at older ages.

They found that women died more from “injuries” in a given year than while giving birth – injuries, they say, “appear to be indicator of violence against women.”

Deaths from fire-related incidents, they say, is a major cause – each year more than 100,000 women are killed by fires in India. The researchers say many cases could be linked to demands over a dowry leading to women being set on fire. Research also found a large number of women died of heart diseases.

These findings point to life-long neglect of women in India.

The scale of the abuse is simply staggering. If you adjusted for the respective population sizes, that would be like 20,000 women a year just going missing in NZ. it would be 500 women a year being killed by fires.

It sounds like this gang rape murder may be the catalyst that leads to actual significant change. Let’s hope so.