MEMBER NEWS: Plan International to celebrate birth of baby 7 billion

Child rights organization Plan International urges India to take action to combat the discrepancies between genders and curb the problem of “vanishing” girls, as the world waits to surpass the estimated 7 billion population mark on October 31.

Plan is set to mark the special day by commemorating the birth of a girl in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh – which accounts for the highest number of ‘missing girls’- by registering “Baby 7 Billion” with the state government and issuing her a birth certificate at a public event.

Although the government has enacted various laws against the use of ultrasound technology for sex-selective abortions, termination of female fetuses remains high. As of the 2011 census, there are 7 million more boys than girls aged 0 to 6 years, with an alarming gap of 914 girls for every 1,000 boys.

For more information about Plan’s efforts to tackle this problem, see the full article on AlertNet.