There are 63 million women missing in India. WTF is going on out there?

In heartbreaking news today, CNN goes into an investigation of unwanted females in India.

Deep within India’s cultures are traditional values, from paying a dowery for daughters to get married, to governmental laws excluding women from otherwise basic human rights, without a doubt, have it much worse than men.

According to CNN,

“Some of the ingrained preference is due to the norms governing inheritance, the continued practice of paying a dowry for female children to be married and the tradition of ‘patrilocality’ — women joining their husband’s households — and rituals which need to be performed by male children.”

CNN reports that 55% of couples who have a girl on the first try will continue to try for a boy until they have one. Due to this, more females have been born and neglected, resulting in a higher cause for early female death.

“What this says is that even if you didn’t have all those things, you have fertility stopping rules, where people say, ‘if I have a (male) child we stop… and if we don’t we continue.'”

Of course, it’s not just children that are affected. In India, there is a recognized gender gap that exists, with a woman reporting rape every 21 minutes, unequal rights in marriages still existing today, and prejudiced customs that prevent equality from flourishing, legal or not.

Right now, there are over 63 million women “missing” in India.

Some parts of the country are lacking women more than others, for example, the state of Gujarat that has a ratio of less 762 women to every 1,000 men.

A report by Kanya.Life, an anti-infanticide organization which uses data analysis to provide insight into the problem, reports that the worst city for gender imbalance is Mahesana in the state of Gujarat, with a ratio of only 762 women for every 1,000 men.

Right now, India is in the lead for the imbalance of genders all around the world,  according to the 2017 World Economic Forum report, with 66% percent of women falling under the unemployed category.

As reported by Al Jazeera, Rebecca Reichmann Tavares who worked as a representative for the UN Women said that India has been aware of this for a while, and stresses that not even “economic development and higher education” has been enough to ensure equality.

“Even having a legal and policy system that has done everything to ensure legal rights for women and for girls, has not been enough.”

But Tavares believes that the issue can be addressed and solved if we just work together.

Now that it’s been brought to light, organizations and campaigns such as “Women on Wings,” and Commit2Change will see more support and finally bring about the improvements and changes women in India have been deprived of for entirely too long.