This Valentine’s Day, will you honor a woman or girl in your life who you love by saving a girl – a girl like Ming Shu?
Look at adorable baby “Ming Shu.” Who wouldn’t love her?
Yet, Ming Shu is an unwanted second daughter. Ming Shu’s mother and
father had just had a daughter and did not plan to get pregnant again so
quickly. Because of the new “Two Child Policy” allowing second
children, her mother thought that continuing the pregnancy would be
allowed.
However, the Two Child Policy did not help Ming Shu’s mother at all.
After Ming Shu was born, her mother still had to pay a large fee to the
Family Planning Office, and faced sterilization. Having a second
daughter meant that Ming Shu’s mother had used up her quota of children
and would not be able to have a baby boy. Her family wanted a son, so
they pressured Ming Shu’s mother to “give away” her baby girl. In the
Chinese countryside, to “give away” a baby girl too often means to leave
her in a field to die. Ming Shu’s mother wanted to keep her daughter.
She was extremely distressed and did not know what to do.
Thankfully, a Women’s Rights Without Frontiers’ (WRWF) undercover
fieldworker found Ming Shu’s mother before it was too late. Our
fieldworker told her that we are helping mothers keep their girls
because we believe that girls are just as good as boys. Our fieldworker
offered Ming Shu’s mother a monthly stipend for a year to empower her
to keep her daughter. With the help of this stipend, Ming Shu’s mother
is defying the pressure from her family and is raising beautiful Ming
Shu.
Our “Save a Girl” program saved Ming Shu’s life. Her mother couldn’t
believe that someone would help them just because she had a baby girl.
