Continued from here where the topic is female infanticide ...

Government officials and UNICEF are shocked and up in arms.

Give me a break.

In a statement marking International Women's Day, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy issued a strong attack against culturally-sanctioned homicidal violence directed at women and girls around the world. She said 'honour' killings, acid violence, female infanticide and bride burning are examples of men and boys killing or seriously injuring female family and community members with impunity.

Ms. Bellamy said it is an outrage when those who commit such crimes are openly admired in their communities and are subjected to only token prosecution.

"For too long, some men have been getting away with murder," said the UNICEF Executive Director. "It is time for governments and local communities to acknowledge these actions as crimes and to act decisively to prevent the continuing murder and disfiguring of thousands of girls and women. Such crimes should be swiftly prosecuted."

... Infanticide has been practiced as a brutal method of family planning in societies where boy children are still valued, economically and socially, above girls. Anecdotal evidence suggests that outright infanticide, usually of newborn girls, takes place in some communities in Asia. Medical testing for sex selection, though officially outlawed, has become a booming business in China, India and the Republic of Korea.

Though no reliable infanticide statistics are available, there remain substantial disparities in gender population figures in these areas.

Ms. Bellamy said that these crimes, along with forced marriages, involuntary virginity tests, female genital mutilation, trafficking and forced prostitution, are egregious violations of girls' and women's rights, based on outmoded and unjust cultural norms.

She cited the call of United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) on governments to recognize, and work to modify, inherited prejudices and customs ...

Allow me to point out that the above quote is from a UNICEF statement issued on the 7th of March, 2000. According to the organization's own figures, that's 17,246,250 dead baby girls ago.

Am I alone in thinking any surprise on the part of officials at the present state of affairs is more than a tad disingenuous? Is there anyone else who questions the validity ... and morality, for that matter ... of continuing to spend vast amounts of money studying the question of female infanticide in India, printing out multi-page reports and cranking up the PR machine, all to foster the illusion that something is being done?

Pick a mad genocidal monster, any mad genocidal monster, and you won't be able to come up with one who eliminated anywhere near the numbers we're talking here. Then take these numbers and add in the female infanticides in China. Tack on to that "honor killings", acid attacks and dowry deaths. None of this is new. None of this is news. Nowhere is there a question of who, what, where, when, why or how.

There is no question at all. Seven thousand dead baby girls every day of the year is NOT a question. It's not even an "issue". It's a crime against humanity of the highest degree.

For more information you can look here and here, or simply Google female infanticide and check out the many links that come up.