Female Infanticide and Feticide

The United Nations DevelopmentProgram estimates that 100 million girls are missing in Asia because of female infanticide and feticide ^[1]. Female infanticide and feticide refer to the deaths of female infants, babies or fetuses from unequal access to health care or food, neglect, sex-selected abortions or purposeful killing ^[1]. Female infanticide has existed for centuries ^[2]; prenatal sex-selection became prevalent with the introduction of sonograms and amniocentesis allowing parents to learn the sex of the fetus at 14-16 weeks ^[3]. Sex selection can also include “selecting embryos for transfer and implantation following IVF, separating sperm, and selectively terminating a pregnancy. ^[4]

Photo by Ranveig, 15 September 2007

Why Female Infanticide Occurs

Gender discrimination drives female infanticide and sex selection. In South Asia, males inherent property, are expected to provide more income for families, and are expected to take care of elderly parents ^[5]. Girls, on the other hand, are seen as a financial burden especially in areas where dowries to husbands are common and wives live with the husband’s family ^[5]. Women are often compelled to have sex-selected abortions because they risk familial-abuse or divorce if they do not produce a son ^[5]. According to the World Health Organization, sex selection also happens for medical reasons and family balancing purposes.

Practices of female infanticide include abandonment or out-adoption of girls, under-reporting of female births, and neglect of daughters causing higher death rates. Studies in Canada found higher rates of infanticide associated with younger mothers, illegitimacy, children born with disabilities, and children that lived with stepparents.^[6]. Infants were more likely to be killed in their first year of life than as an older infant. ^[6]

Rates of Female Infanticide

This issue is most prevalent in India and China; the UNDP estimates that 85 of the 100 million missing girls in Asia are from India and China ^{[1] [7]}. This creates a global impact because these countries represent 2 out of every 5 people in the world ^[8]. It is possible that this is equally prevalent in other Asian countries but statistics are harder to find in places with strict abortion laws like Bangladesh and Pakistan ^[8]. It is estimated that 3.2 million and 6.1 million girls are missing because of female infanticide and feticide in Bangladesh and Pakistan respectively. ^{[1] [7]}

In East Asia 119 boys are born for every 100 girls ^[1]; the 2000-2005 male-to-female sex ratio in China was 1.21; India is 1.08; Sub-Saharan Africa is 1.03 ^[1].

Social Implications of Female Infanticide

In China, where 120 boys are born for every 100 girls ^[9], there are as many unmarried young men as the entire population of young men in the United States. In 10 years, one in five young men will be unable to find a bride. In Asian countries, where marriage and children are recognized routes into society, young single men are considered outlaws. This imbalance between males and females is associated with higher crime rates, bride trafficking, sexual violence, and female suicide rates ^[10]. Specifically in China, over the period of 1989-2005, every 1 increase in the sex ratio led to a 3.14% increase in crime ^[9].

Laws and Policies to Prevent Female Infanticide

Some laws exist to prevent female infanticide and feticide, however it should be noted that there is a debate between the autonomy of a woman’s choice to have an abortion for any reason and the need to prevent gender discrimination manifesting itself by stopping the reproduction of females. The United Nations has included female infanticide and prenatal sex selection as an act of violence against women during the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China in 1995 ^[1].

In India the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1971 legalized abortions ^[8]. The Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques Bill made sex detection tests illegal in 1994 to prevent sex-selected abortions^[8][4]. China legalized the ‘termination of pregnancy’ in 1957 and enacted the ‘one-child policy’ in 1979. It has been theorized that this policy exacerbates female feticide because families want a male if they are only to have one child. In 2004, China banned sex selected abortions ^[11].

Because of these laws, India and China have seen a stabilization of sex ratios ^[12], and as the largest offenders, reversing this trend would create substantial change throughout the world. Modernization plays an important role, with industrialization and urbanization helping to trigger normative change within society. Also, the spread of non-farm employment helps to diversity sources of income, making people more independent of familial pressures ^[13] .

Public policy is also an important factor. Media campaigns, legislation, financial incentives, and sponsorship of grassroots women’s organizations are positive interventions that can help make daughters more desirable. Recently, the Chinese government has introduced a series of laws to protect women’s rights and promote gender equality, including regulations on economic and political participation, education, property inheritance, marriage, and retirement support. In addition, several countrywide campaigns, the most influential of which being “Care for Girls,” attempt to improve the social and cultural environment in favor of female survival. These collective actions have seen a decline in sex-ratios in China from 133.8 in 2000 to 119.6 in 2005 ^[14].

An Example of Effectively Curbing Female Infanticide

With high sex ratios in the early 1990s, South Korea followed the same trajectory as many other prime cases of this problem. However, with increased modernization causing a shift in cultural norms, this ratio began to fall during the mid-1990s; by 2007 sex ratios hit biologically normal levels ^[12]. Between 1985 and 2003, the share of South Korean women who felt that they must have a son fell from 48% to 17% ^[10]. Modernization, urbanization, and education changed societal structures and values that had strengthened son preference. Education for females, equal rights rulings, and anti-discrimination suites have made son preference seem out-of-date and unnecessary ^[12].

References

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6} United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women Beijing, China Platform for Action. 1995. Retrieved March 21, 2010, from http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/violence.htm.
2. ↑ Moseley, K. L. The History of Infanticide in Western Society. L. & Med. 1985: 345.
3. ↑ George SM. Millions of missing girls: from fetal sexing to high technology sex selection in India. Prenat Diagn 2006; 26: 604–609.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} World Health Organization Genometric Resource Centre. “Sex Selection and Discrimination.” 2010. Retreived March 21, 2010, from http://www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/index4.html.
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2} Moazam F. Feminist Discource on Sex Screening and Selective Abortion of Female Foetuses. Bioethics. 2004: 18(3); 205-220.
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1} Daly M, Wilson D. 1988. Killing Children. Parental Homicide in the Modern West. In Homicide. New York; Aldine de Gruyter.. More recently, pre-natal methods of sex-selection and selective abortion of female fetuses has become widespread (Sudha 1999).
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1} Klasen S, Wink C. “A Turning Point in Gender Bias in Mortality? An Update on the Number of Missing Women." Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., 2002: 28(2); 285-312.
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3} Abrejo FG, Shaikh BT, Rizvi N. ‘And they kill me, only because I am a girl’ . . . a review of sex- selective abortions in South Asia. The European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care February 2009;14(1):10–16.
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1} Edlund L, Li H, Yi J, Zhang J. “Sex ratios and crime: evidence from China’s one-child policy.” Institute for the Study of Labour, Bonn. Discussion Paper 3214. December 2007
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1} Gendercide: The war on baby girls. The Economist. March 4 2010. Retried March 28, 2010, from http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15636231#footnote1.
11. ↑ China bans selective abortion to fix imbalance. China Daily. July 16 2004. Retrieved March 21, 2010, from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/16/content_349051.htm.
12. ↑ ^{12.0 12.1 12.2} Das Gupta M, Chung W, Shuzhuo L. “Is there an incipient turnaround in Asia’s “missing girls” phenomenon?” World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper 4846. February 2009.
13. ↑ Chung W, Das Gupta M. “The decline of son preference in South Korea: the roles of development and public policy.” Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., 2007: 33(4); 757-78.
14. ↑ Li S. Imbalanced Sex Ratio at Birth and Comprehensive Intervention in China. Institute for Population and Development Studies. Fourth Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights. October 2007

15. Asia-Pacific Human Development Report. Power, Voice and Rights: A Turning Point for Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific. United Nations Development Program. 2010. Retrieved March 21, 2010, from http://www2.undprcc.lk/ext/pvr/.

16. Jensen R, Oster E. “The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women’s Status in India.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT, 2009: 124(3); 1057-1094.

17. Sudha S, Rajan SI. Female Deomgraphic Disadvantage in India 1981-1991: Sex Selective Abortions and Female Infanticide. Development and Change. 1999: 30; 585-618.