The other side of a day like today

The world doesn't turn into gumdrops and soda pop just becuase the sun comes out.

This report from Yahoo!/AFP reports from the UN that 96 million women are "missing" in Asia.

Female infanticide and sex-selective abortion have caused a severe gender imbalance in Asia, and the problem is worsening despite rapid economic growth in the region, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report said.

The actual UN report is listed here. And the stunning thing is that this is reported by the Un of all orgnaizations in the world. here's how they describe it:

The problem of “missing girls” ―in which more boys are born than girls, as girl fetuses are presumably aborted, and women die from health and nutrition neglect— is actually growing. Birth gender disparity is greatest in East Asia, where 119 boys are born for every 100 girls.

China and India together account for more than 85 million of the nearly 100 million “missing” women estimated to have died from discriminatory treatment in health care, nutrition access or pure neglect ―or because they were never born in the first place, the Report found.

A tenth of women here report being assaulted by their partners, and a majority of women who do work —up to 85 percent of South Asia’s working women― are engaged in unstable low-end work in the informal economy.

Now, here's something the UN folks don't want to tell you: the population in Asia is still growing. For example, in China the population growth rate is 0.6%, compared to in the US which has a growth rate of 0.98% -- but that means that in the US, our population grows by about 2 million people every year -- and China grows by about 8 million every year.

Here's why I point that out: the problem outlined here by the UN is not that discrimination against women is the cause of economic distress, and it's not causing depopulation (yet). Moreover, improved economic conditions and medical treatment have not diminished this trend.

Somehow women aren't treated well just because there's more money around.

I wonder why.