When a newborn girl arrives in the UK, the first place she is likely to be put is safely in her mother’s arms. In China, where the one child policy has reigned for a quarter of a century, this is not always the case.

With boys being widely regarded as more useful and better providers for their elderly parents, girls are thought of more as a costly burden, and are often abandoned, neglected or dumped in orphanages.

BBC Radio 4 caught my ear this morning as Xinran, a journalist and radio presenter brought up in Beijing, described her experiences when investigating how the notorious social policy has affected the lives of Chinese women who abandoned their daughters at birth. Listen to her account of a newborn girl placed straight in a slop bucket.

Women in China who are abandoned, forgotten and abused aren't alone; Ctrl.Alt.Shift last year highlighted 50 million missing women in India by protesting on International Women’s Day, demanding that the Indian Prime Minister take urgent action to stop violence against women.

International Women’s Day this year is on 8th March.

Image: from here