Today has been International Daughters' Day. Fortunately, I have two very international daughters (and three international daughters-in-law)! Yet, one international achievement brings me a special level of satisfaction. My daughter Aileen served eight years in Brazil with the Mennonite Central Committee. She began at a pre-school, and then branched out to help mothers, all of them who were struggling economically, and many of them stuck in abusive situations.
Aileen feeling at home in Recife, PN, Brazil, 2005.
Visiting mothers and daughters.
Towards the end of her stay, she wrote Até Quando?: O cuidado pastoral em contexto de violência contra a mulher praticada por parceiro íntimo (Until When?: Pastoral care in the context of violence against women by an intimate partner, 128p. ISBN 978-85-7779-037-1). Published in 2010, it won the Counseling Book of the Year award from the Brazilian Association of Evangelical Booksellers. I am a very proud dad.
In researching the history of Daughters' Day, it began in India, intended to help combat the enormous loss of little girls to sex-selective abortions and infanticide. The 2011 Census showed that among children aged 0-6 years old, India had only 914 girls for every 1000 boys. In Maharashtra state, the figure was 883. Some villages in India report no girls born in an entire year. Although it is a world-wide problem, it is especially serious in India and China. While I was in China in 2004, the government was waking up to the problem of having 119 marriageable men for every 100 women. For any such society, a wide variety of problems present themselves. For example, more crime is committed by unmarried males than by any other demographic. A country could draft its extra males into the military, but then the neighbors get nervous. Today, in the Uighur areas of China, husbands are often placed in labor and reeducation camps, while Han Chinese 'uncles' are assigned to live in those homes. Are these situations connected? What does a society do once it gets so out of balance?
I am so thankful for all my sons and my daughters, and all my grandkids. There are so many reasons to be #ProScience #ProLife #ProWoman @AmSolidarity
Girls--daughters--are critically important for any society. We must take care and nurture them.
