For many readers, the title of this article may seem sensational or even unbelievable, but the number stated is a statistical fact according to an article written by Sherry Karabin of Fox News. According to the United Nations Population Fund, practices such as abortion, prenatal gender selection, and female infanticide are leading to a dearth of females in the continent of Asia. Mrs. Karabin states that this is "Creating a gender imbalance and other serious problems that experts say will have far-reaching consequences for years to come."

These consequences that she is referring to can be felt in countries such as China where:

     1) 25 million men in China currently cannot find a wife
     2) Commercial trade of women from other countries to fill this void has become a nation-wide business
     3) Prostitution is commonplace
     4) Homosexuality has now become socially acceptable; AIDS cases are at historic levels

In China, sons are considered to be more valuable because they are the ones that will shoulder the responsibility of taking care of parents when the parents become old. Because daughters become part of their husband's family after marriage, they are nicknamed "maggots in the rice" meaning that the family must provide food and clothing for the child, but the child will leave the family when they are old enough to contribute something. This tradition combined with China's "One Child Policy" causes many baby girls to be aborted upon discovering their gender through sonogram. In the countryside where technology does not allow for a sonogram, many baby girls (and sometimes handicapped boys) are killed at birth or abandoned on doorsteps, dumpsters, or along the side of the road. Orphanages are full of these abandoned baby girls, but due to understaffing and under-funding most of them will not live to adulthood. (For more information on the state of orphanages in China, please see the video documentary done by the BBC entitled "The Dying Room.")

Gender preferences are not isolated to China, but are also seen in countries such as India where experts estimate that about 300,000 girls go "missing" in India each year. There are two main reasons that sons are preferred in India. Firstly, tradition stipulates that only males can perform the last rites for parents. Secondly, India has a dowry system where families must pay large sums of money to marry off their daughters. Studies show that this is not a problem existing solely in poor communities, but in all social classes.

Millions of unwanted little girls are finding a heavenly home and a Father who loves them each year. Pray for Team ARM as they endeavor to shed the light of the glorious gospel on this dark land and raise up a generation of Christians who will care for these little ones.