by Mark Helyar
Absent Friends places the reality and impact of gender discrimination in the context of daily life in the Himalayan foothills, told through the stories of the girls and women who live there. From the author of Rising from the Dust ~ India's Hidden Voices, it includes references and links to relevant news stories, publications and online material.
According to a report published by the United Nations in 2011, an "Indian girl aged 1-5 years is 75% more likely to die than an Indian boy, making this the worst differential in child mortality for any country in the world."
Official data from the 2011 Census of India reveals that, despite an increase in the number of females over the last 10 years, the number of girls under the age of seven has declined.
Although some commentators argue that this is due to natural changes in the demographic, the predominant causes are more likely to be female infanticide, a practice that has existed for centuries, and foeticide, a rapidly escalating social evil. As scientific procedures for detecting the gender of a baby in the womb have improved in recent years, so the situation has worsened.
In 2005, Mark Helyar travelled to India. He lived with street kids in South India, became caught up in a post-tsunami orphanage intrigue and visited some of the remote villages of the Garhwal region of the Himalayan foothills. Feeling compelled to share something of the spirit and determination of the people he met, he wrote Rising from the Dust.
Seven years later, many of the issues remain pertinent. Some have become even more pressing. So Mark decided to update and publish parts of the book as a series of articles, at the heart of which are the tales of people featured in Rising from the Dust. Absent Friends is the first of these.
Absent Friends - Kindle Non-Fiction
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Reviewed by Duh
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