14 October 2019, 11:45

A social campaign "#Bavakane" (Enough) is targeted against selective abortions caused by the gender of the unborn baby. The campaign actions are held at the initiative of the "Doping" creative company.

The problem of selective abortions is acute in Armenia. According to Garik Airapetyan, an employee of the Armenian office of the UN Population Fund, Armenia ranks third in the world, after China and Azerbaijan, in the birth rate of boys.

The social campaign was launched on October 11 at the "Mother Armenia" monument in Yerevan, to the pedestal of which the message "Over the past 25 years, more than 40,000 girls failed to be born in Armenia" was broadcast.

"Armenian families so much want a boy to be born, that when the second or third daughter is born into the family, they name her 'Bavakane' (means 'enough' in Armenian) for the next baby to be a boy," said one of the organizers of the action.

Arsen Torosyan, the Armenian Public Health Minister, has noted on his Facebook that annually about 1300 girls are not born in the country due to selective abortions.

"My husband didn't come to take me from the maternity hospital when he learned that a girl was born. He really wanted a boy; and, for some reason, felt offended by me. But now he adores out daughter. We have a boy too; in Armenian families, he is an heir, but my husband loves his daughter in a special way," said Anait Manasyan, a resident of Yerevan.

Nelly Safaryan told how badly they treated her neighbour in the village when she gave birth to the second girl. "The husband's family treated the poor girl as if she had committed some crime," she said.