Female infanticide and gender-selective abortion (2007)

"It is the ultimate manifestation of discrimination… It is particularly vicious. It doesn't affect your conscience because there is no evidence."

Francois Farrah, Chief of Population and Development for UNFPA.

Female infanticide is the murder of baby girls soon after birth on the sole basis of gender.  Female infanticide is more common than male infanticide because of the perceived social and economic disadvantages to having girl children.  Female infanticide is most common in China and India.

Female infanticide is more prevalent in poor families, mainly in rural areas.  Wealthier families in the cities have access to and can afford ultrasounds and other procedures that facilitate pre-birth gender selection so the foetus can be aborted once the gender is known.  Where gender is known, 42% of female foetuses in India are aborted compared to 25% male ( HinduWomen.org).  This gender-selective abortion and female infanticide is creating a great skew in gender demographics in favour of boys and this is consequently leading to a number of abuses being perpetrated against women and girls.

In China, where the one child rule has existed since 1979, unwanted baby girls are often sold, trafficked, neglected or abandoned in the state's orphanages.  If the family can afford to keep the baby girl, her birth, and consequently her legal existence, may remain unregistered.  This means that in future, she can claim no benefits from the state or any inheritance from her family.  As there is such a shortage of young women in China, this has led to a rise in trafficking and bride auctions, especially in rural areas.

In Asia, 60 million girls and 50 million girls from Indiawho would otherwise be expected to be alive are 'missing' from the populations (UNFPA 2005).  In India, it is customary for the bride's family to give a dowry to the groom's family when she is married.  If a family has more than one daughter this can be very expensive.  Although this custom has been outlawed, it is still practiced in many rural areas.  In all cases, it is more likely that gender selection is exercised against girls if this is the first child or if the first child was a girl.

Economically, boys are seen as better investments because of their higher earning potential and their provision for their parents in their old age, where as girls join the families of their husbands when they marry.  Of course, if the gender bias against education for girls were removed, they would have the skills to be employed in higher paying jobs and it would be up to them whether they supported their parents or not, whether they were married or not.

Governments of both countries have introduced laws to try and address these problems.  In China, their Women Protection Law prohibits discrimination against women that have chosen to keep their daughters.  Under Maternal Health Care Law the use of antenatal technology for determining the gender of a baby is banned.  In India, the state of Tamil Nadu will provide money annually to families with one or two daughters and no son for their daughter's education if either parent is willing to be sterilised.  On their daughter's 20th birthday a lump sum is paid.

Female infanticide is forbidden in all major religions, although male bias in patriarchal structures embodied by the state and exacerbated by poverty and a tolerance of violence against women give impetus to the devaluing of our girl children.  With fewer and fewer girls being born to countries that need them the most, our most precious resource is being depleted before even having had the chance to thrive.

 

ORGANISATIONS & WEBSITES

BBC - Female Infanticide

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/ethics/abortion/medical/infanticide_1.shtml

Gendercide Watch

http://www.gendercide.org/

 

POLICY & REPORTS

Gender-Based Violence: A Price Too High
UNFPA State of the World Population 2005

 

NEWS STORIES

Silent Spring: The Tragedy of India's Never-Born Girls
UNFPA News, 11 October 2005

Female infanticide and sex-selective abortion - the aftermath of China's one-chid policy
The Stanford Daily, 29 April 2004

Fighting female infanticide
The Hindu, 12 May 2001