Worldwide, the percentage of women-to-men is 49-to-51. Yet, as Kristof and WuDunn document, every year two million young girls and women simply vanish.

In some cultures girl babies are valued less than boy babies. For example, in China 100,000 girls die from neglect and outright abandonment. Rumors of this were whispered during the 1950s and 60s but these were thought to be just that: rumors. In India, a bride burning takes place about every two hours due to an inadequate dowry, or so the husband will be freed to marry another woman according to Kristof and WuDunn. This may be an ancient, if horrific, custom but it’s happening daily, now. Neither abuse receives much attention in the Western press. The question becomes why not?

The answer, quite simply, is that it is not in the West’s best interests to publicize these ongoing abuses. India is by all measures an ally and significant trading partner; and a nuclear power. China, thanks to W. Bush, has control of the United States’ economy because W. financed the Iraq Invasion and Afghan War with funds borrowed primarily from the Chinese; it too is a nuclear power. The two most populous countries in the world are viewed as markets for exports and their human rights abuses are given a pass in order for the markets to thrive. There’s also the sticky issue of the Chinese calling in our debt. The result of the Free Market approach to economics has produced a world where women remain slaves and chattel and the western press is mute.

Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister of India for 15 years until her assassination in 1984. At the All India Women’s Conference in 1980, Ms. Gandhi advocated equality for women. She was killed. The issues she addressed 30 years ago remain. Indians are viewed as a kindly, pacifistic culture, yet abuse of women continues.

Jiang Qing, Madame Mao Zedong, was Deputy Director of the Cultural Revolution. Two-to-seven million Chinese died during the Cultural Revolution in an effort to not let Chinese Communism become as soft on Western Culture as Mao thought the Russians had become. Madame Mao was instrumental in this slaughter. After his death in 1976, Jiang Qing was brought to trial as part of the Gang of Four. She committed suicide rather than go to prison. Chinese girls as young as 6 are still chained to work stations to make Barbie dolls.

The Chinese literally control America because they control the purse strings. There’s nothing wrong with foreign investment but Junior Bush sold America for a personal vendetta and the press is culpable for not doing its job. The official Chinese estimate for the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 is 200; the reality is that close to 3,000 people were killed. Twenty-one years later, there still appears to be a conscious effort to not disturb the indelicate balances and relationships the United States has with these countries. Sadly, India and China aren’t the only ones.

The Aug. 9 issue of TIME Magazine has a cover story featuring 18 year old Aisha. She ran away from an abusive husband but was caught. Her punishment was to have her ears and nose cut off by her enraged husband while her brother-in-law held her down. She was left on a mountainside to die; this happened in 2009, not decades or centuries ago. And the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimates that 50,000 people are trafficked into or transited through the U.S.A. annually as sex slaves, domestics, garment, and agricultural slaves (http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/USA.htm).

The Arizona law that’s received so much attention in recent months is intended to discriminate against Hispanics and, as such, is unconstitutional. The White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Republican chant to repeal the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution rings hollow and pales in comparison to the abuses suffered by women worldwide. Again, this is a specious, Republican attempt to discriminate solely against Hispanics and change the dialogue from meaningful discussions of women’s and children’s rights to political diatribe. Of course, Senators Snowe and Collins are mute. The press needs to do its job and focus on the unpleasant realities and hypocrisies of governments and politicians and address the human rights being violated.

“In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge was slavery. In the twentieth century, it was the battle against totalitarianism ”¦ in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality.” (Kristof & WuDunn).

Women should not disappear. Girl babies should not be abandoned. Brides should not be burned.

Paul C. Trahan lives in Saco.