“Why keep girls when raising them is so difficult?” This question, asked by a mother in the 2002 docu-film It’s a Girl, gives a slight look into the mentality of many would be parents in India. According to a paper by the Guardian published earlier this year, there were 21 million girls unwanted by their families. Additionally, 19 female fetuses were found in the state of Maharashtra in March of 2017, wrapped in plastic bags. (Striva, 2017) The same report from the Guardian suggest that currently there are 63 million less women in India then there should statistically be. All this along with the fact that there are seemingly more boys than girls being born in India, you can’t help but wonder where all the girls have gone. In this paper I want to explore the topic of female infanticide/feticide and neglect in India, exploring not only it’s cultural justification, but also the effect of culturally instilled gender preference on living daughters as sex-selective reflecting the low societal status of woman.
There are several reasons for not wanting a girl child in India. There are cultural, economic, and social pressures to have a son and as a traditionally patriarchal society, the sentiment of male preference still lingers. Although not a universal sentiment among all families, boys are generally seen as assets. They bring wealth, care for the parents, and ultimately strengthen the family by carrying the family lineage. Girls however carry a different, much more negative stigma. For many families, having a girl child may seem more of a burden than anything, and for some it may even be shameful. At it’s core, this could be seen as a problem of materialism and in some cases desperate need. A female child does not seem like a good “long term investment” due to the money lost on her upbringing, education, and ultimately her dowry. A daughter’s dowry becomes a burden for even the wealthy, as it is clear that for every luxurious gift received for their son, is lost when they have to pay it out for their daughter. Limited social welfare systems in India also exasperate the need for a son to care the aging parents as the daughter’s ties to them are generally cut once she gets married. While boys are seen as profitable members of the family, other gender barriers prevent daughters from achieving the same amount of success as a son would, making it so that parents prioritize a son in order to secure themselves in the future. Despite progressing in so many ways, this remains a persisting sentiment among people both rich and poor. Families of all classes are disposing of their baby girls in a systemic way that can affects girls long after birth.
In India, the frequency of female feticide and infanticide only continues to increase. (Dasgupta, 2014) For an unwanted baby girl, there may be three ways her parents might get rid of her. Wealthy to be parents can receive an illegal ultrasound an equally illegal abortion if they are displeased with the results. For poorer families, they may have no choice but to go to term and dispose of the child either by abandonment or by killing her once she is born. If a baby girl is allowed to live, they still tend to be neglected or abused by their families. According to the film mentioned earlier, girls between the ages 0-5 have a 40% higher mortality rate than boys because their families are less likely to spend resources on them, including food and healthcare.
A little different than abortion, feticide is the action of aborting a female fetus illegally. Although within normal range in eastern and southern India, the child sex ratio is most disproportionate in western and northwestern states and in urban area in particular, with religion, education, and wealth not playing a substantial factor. The rise of feticide was liked to the prevalence of affordable ultrasound technology in India. However, this advancement only gave rise to gender specific abortions, with as many as 10 million girls being lost this phenomenon since the 1990’s alone. Poorer mothers may attempt to abort their own child by using the root of the plumbago rosea and arsenic. Additionally, to present day an estimated 500,000 girls are being lost annually to feticide simply because they were female. In an attempt to stop this, the Indian government passed the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act in 1994 to ban and punish the practice of prenatal gender screens and abortions. However, it has been argued by argue by Unicef that this law has not been enforced, citing that as many as 22 out of 35 states in India had not reported a since case since it was enacted. Out of 400 cases, there have only been two convictions, both with the incredibly low fines of about seven dollars and the other of $98. (Gupta) The lax hand that rules only makes it more tempting for doctors to take the bribe, the profit they gain from performing the procedure much more tolerable. For many people, disposing of the child before birth is the most convenient way to do so.
Unlike it’s more recent sibling, infanticide has a much longer history, spanning centuries. Defined by the Indian Penal code, infanticide is the killing of an infant from birth up until the first year. Statistically, one out of 4 girls in India do not make it past puberty and although criminalized, infanticide remains an under-reported crime in India, making much of the data unreliable. This has been such a long reaching problem in India that it was even reported by the first British colonizers, even noting that there were entire clans that lacked even a single female child. (Grey, 2011) Unwanted girls may be murdered in various ways such a poising, strangulation, and suffocation. In It’s A Girl, a mother details the practice of how she killed her own daughter by placing a wet cloth over her face and suffocating her. The act of infanticide is, interestingly, usually carried out by the mother. For these mothers the lack of income is truly one the biggest issues in terms of caring for a child. In that same documentary, a group of women agree that boys and girls are equal but still agree that it’s better to not have a girl, the financial burden of caring for a girl seemingly making her not worth keeping.
An increasing number of girls are being abandoned by their parents. Since for many parents an abortion is out the question, they resort to simply having children until they have finally have a boy. Being of course unable to keep all the children, this has caused for millions of girls to be left up for adoption or abandoned completely. CNN estimates that the number sits around 21 million “unwanted” baby girls, stating that 55% of couples who have a girl will continue trying for another until they have a boy. Oddly enough, the reported cited by CNN argues that this mentality is helping balance out the gender imbalance, though female infant mortality rates still remain high.
This sort of mentality does have long lasting effects. Though not as common as in other parts of India, in these communities where women are devalued, domestic abuse is common. In what is called a dowry death, the groom and his family may harass or physically abuse the bride. Since women themselves are associated with their dowry, in cases where it might not be enough, the groom and even his family may mistreat or even kill the wife in order to replace her and receive better. Some wives may end up committing suicide and some may even be abused for their own inability to produce the all too coveted son. (Olenberg, 2002)
There are many things that disturb about the gendercide in India. From the disregard for the national sex ratio to the casual way the murder of a child is talked about. This is a problem that is deep rooted in Indian culture and while it is mostly non-existent in many parts of the country, it is important to note just how big of impact this phenomenon has in the places where it still runs deep. For families that cannot afford to abort their female fetus, the only answer is to kill her or to give her away or up for adoption once she is born, both with their own moral challenges. Though the government has tried to halt this practice, it has lacked the backing to truly make an impact, thus enabling the practice it claims to condemn. Though it is hard to say what would truly fix this issue, it is safe to assume that this is a problem that if not addressed soon will only keep growing at the expense of children who if not murdered, will struggle to find their place in communities that clearly work against them.