Infanticide

Infanticide entails actions that result in the death of an infant of the same species. Several species commit infanticide, including birds (e.g., skuas and egrets) and mammals (e.g., gerbils, wild stallions, Serengeti lions, and primates such as langurs, gorillas, and humans). Among species other than humans, infanticide is usually carried out by an invading male to increase his reproductive chances by eliminating the young of a rival male so as to force the female to mate with him. Among humans, infanticide may range from deliberate to not fully conscious actions that result in the death of a child typically less than twelve months of age. The age may vary, however, depending on cultural notions of when the life of a child begins. The term neonaticide is frequently used when an infant is killed on the day of its birth, while the term filicide is used for the killing of a child (particularly below the age of six years) by one or both parents.

Infanticide has existed throughout human history in different parts of the world, although its form, the motivating factors, and the circumstances surrounding it have varied. The Greeks, Romans, British, French, Inuit (Canada and North America), Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Tikopia of Polynesia, !Kung of the Kalahari, Yanomama of Venezuela and Brazil, and Bariba of Benin have all engaged in it in constant patterns. Infanticide can be traced to the ancient world in the Mediterranean basin, among other locations. It persisted in western Europe during the Middle Ages; although in some cases infanticide was considered a crime, prosecutions were extremely rare and penalties were minor. In parts of Asia (particularly India and China) the practice of female infanticide has continued into the twenty-first century because of a combination of cultural, social, economic, and political factors. Female infanticide usually happens in patrilineal, patrilocal, and patriarchal cultures in which there is a strong preference for males and devaluation of females. In India and China female infanticide has contributed to a significant imbalance in the ratio of males to females.

Among other reasons, infanticide has been used as: a method of family size control; a mechanism for regulating the population; a means to manipulate the sex ratio for personal, economic, cultural, and social ends; a response to the shame and fear of ostracism when pregnancy and birth have resulted from violation of norms; and a reaction to a cost-benefit analysis of the value for male and female offspring (Caldwell and Caldwell 2005, Dickeman 1975, Spinelli 2005). Infanticide sometimes also results from a postpartum reaction on the part of the mother. Based on a review of ethnographic material, Susan C. M. Scrimshaw (1984) provides four major sources of infanticide: (1) infant deformity; (2) illegitimacy; (3) an infant proximate at birth to a sibling; and (4) an infant of the undesired sex in a society that values males and females differently (especially, in relation to the value of their labor). Methods of infanticide vary from abandoning the infant, death by exposure, withholding of food, suffocation, drowning, and discarding infants in garbage dumps, sewers, or remote areas.

Since the late 1960s, human rights and women's rights organizations worldwide have engaged in an ongoing series of protests and actions to end systematic infanticide, especially female infanticide. These organizations have pressured governments to address the sex ratio imbalance and to take a proactive role in improving the overall status of girls and women as a key to eliminating female infanticide.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Caldwell, John C., and Bruce K. Caldwell. 2005. "Family Size Control by Infanticide in the Great Agrarian Societies of Asia." Journal of Comparative Family Studies 36(2): 205-226.

Dickeman, Mildred. 1975. "Demographic Consequences of Infanticide in Man." Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 6: 107-137.

Meyer, Jon'a F. 2005. "Unintended Consequences for the Youngest Victims: The Role of Law in Encouraging Neonaticide from the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries." Criminal Justice Studies: A Critical Journal of Crime, Law, and Society 18(3): 237-254.

Scrimshaw, Susan C. M. 1984. "Infanticide in Human Populations: Societal and Individual Concerns." In Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives, ed. Glenn Hausfater and Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. New York: Aldine Publishing.

Spinelli, M. G. 2005. "Infanticide: Contrasting Views." Archives of Women's Mental Health 8: 15-24.

Sudha, S., and S. Irudaya Rajan. 1999. "Female Demographic Disadvantage in India, 1981–1991: Sex-Selective Abortions and Female Infanticide." Development and Change 30(3): 585-618.

Tooley, Michael. 1983. Abortion and Infanticide. New York: Oxford University Press.

Yi, Zeng; Tu Ping; Gu Baochang; et al. 1993. "Causes and Implications of the Recent Increase in the Reported Sex Ratio at Birth in China." Population and Development Review 19(2): 283-302.

                                       Margaret Abraham