Female infanticide in China

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China has a history of female infanticide which spans 2,000 years. When Christian missionaries arrived in China in the late sixteenth century, they witnessed newborns being thrown into rivers or onto rubbish piles. [1] [2] In the seventeenth century Matteo Ricci documented that the practice occurred in several of China's provinces and said that the primary reason for the practice was poverty. [2] The practice continued into the 19th century and declined precipitously during the Communist era, [3] but has reemerged as an issue since the introduction of the one-child policy in the early 1980s. [4] The 2020 census showed a male-to-female ratio of 105.07 to 100 for mainland China, a record low since the People's Republic of China began conducting censuses. [5] Every year in China and India alone, there are close to two million instances of some form of female infanticide. [6]

Contents

History

Burying Babies in China (p.40, March 1865, XXII) Burying Babies in China (p.40, March 1865, XXII).jpg
Burying Babies in China (p.40, March 1865, XXII)

Confucianism has an influence on female infanticide in China. The fact that male children work to provide for their elderly and that certain traditions are male-driven lead many to believe they are more desirable. [8]

19th century

Chinese anti-infanticide tract circa 1800 Chinese anti infanticide tract from 1800.jpg
Chinese anti-infanticide tract circa 1800

During the 19th century, the practice was widespread. Readings from Qing texts show a prevalence of the term ni nü (to drown girls), and drowning was the most common method used to kill female children. Other methods used were suffocation and starvation. [a] [10] Exposure to the elements was another method: the child would be placed in a basket which was then placed in a tree. Buddhist nunneries created "baby towers" for people to leave a child. [11] In 1845, in the province of Jiangxi, a missionary wrote that these children survived for up to two days while exposed to the elements and that those passing by would ignore the screaming child. [12] Missionary David Abeel reported in 1844 that between one-fourth and one-third of all female children were killed at birth or soon after. [13]

Baby Tower in Fujian Province Baby Tower.jpg
Baby Tower in Fujian Province

In 1878 French Jesuit missionary, Gabriel Palatre, collated documents from 13 provinces [14] and the Annales de la Sainte-Enfance (Annals of the Holy Childhood), also found evidence of infanticide in Shanxi and Sichuan. According to the information collected by Palatre the practice was more widespread in the southeastern provinces and the Lower Yangzi River region. [15]

20th century

In 1930, Rou Shi, a noted member of the May Fourth Movement, wrote the short story A Slave-Mother. In it he portrayed the extreme poverty in rural communities that was a direct cause of female infanticide. [16]

One-Child Policy

In Chinese society, most parents preferred having sons, so in 1979 when the government created the One-Child Policy, baby girls were aborted or abandoned. [17] If parents had more than one child they would be fined. The earning potential of the male heir compared to a female made parents believe that having female children would be an economic hardship, making female infanticide more desirable solution. [8]

A white paper published by the Chinese government in 1980 stated that the practice of female infanticide was a "feudalistic evil". [b] The state officially considers the practice a carryover from feudal times, not a result of the state's one-child policy. According to Jing-Bao Nie, it would be "inconceivable" to believe there is "no link" between the state's family planning policies and female infanticide. [18]

On September 25, 1980, in an "open letter", the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party requested that members of the party, and those in the Communist Youth League, lead by example and have only one child. From the beginning of the one-child policy, there were concerns that it would lead to an imbalance in the sex ratio. Early in the 1980s, senior officials became increasingly concerned with reports of abandonment and female infanticide by parents desperate for a son. In 1984, the government attempted to address the issue by adjusting the one-child policy. Couples whose first child is a girl are allowed to have a second child. [4] Even when exceptions were made to the One-Child Policy if a couple had a female child first, the baby girls were still discarded, because the parents didn't want the financial burden of having two children. They would continuously do this until they had a boy.[ citation needed ]

Current situation

Roadside sign in Danshan, Yanjiang District, Ziyang, Sichuan, which reads "It is forbidden to discriminate against, abuse or abandon baby girls" PRC family planning don't abandon girls.jpg
Roadside sign in Danshan, Yanjiang District, Ziyang, Sichuan, which reads "It is forbidden to discriminate against, abuse or abandon baby girls"

Many Chinese couples desire to have sons because they provide support and security to their aging parents later in life. [19] Conversely, a daughter is expected to leave her parents upon marriage to join and care for her husband's family (parents-in-law). [19] In rural households, which as of 2014 constitute almost half the Chinese population, [20] males are additionally valuable for performing agricultural work and manual labor. [19] [21]

Birth sex ratios have dramatically changed in China since the implementation of the One-Child Policy. Sex ratio at birth in mainland China.png
Birth sex ratios have dramatically changed in China since the implementation of the One-Child Policy.

A 2005 intercensus survey demonstrated pronounced differences in sex ratio across provinces, ranging from 1.04 in Tibet to 1.43 in Jiangxi. [22] Banister (2004), in her literature review on China's shortage of girls, suggested that there has been a resurgence in the prevalence of female infanticide following the introduction of the one-child policy. [23] On the other hand, many researchers have argued that female infanticide is rare in China today, [22] [24] especially since the government has outlawed the practice. [25] Zeng and colleagues (1993), for example, contended that at least half of the nation's gender imbalance arises from the underreporting of female births. [24]

According to the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), the demographic shortfall of female babies who have died for gender-related issues is in the same range as the 191 million estimated dead accounting for all conflicts in the twentieth century. [26] In 2012, the documentary It's a Girl: The Three Deadliest Words in the World was released. It focused on female infanticide in India and China. [27]

According to China's 2020 census (the Seventh National Population Census of the People's Republic of China), the gender ratio of mainland China has improved, with the male-to-female ratio reaching a new record low of 105.07. [5] This is the most balanced gender ratio since the PRC began conducting a census in 1953. [5]

Female infanticides' effects on population and society

Female infanticide, especially as a result of the One-Child Policy, has caused an imbalance of genders and available females of childbearing age resulting in a decline in population and births. In 2017 there were under 13 birth per 1000 people. There were also 33 million more men than women. [28] [29] The ratio imbalance between childbearing females and males because of female infanticide has also led to the rise of sex trafficking and bridal kidnapping of females or importing brides from other countries. [30]

Preventing female infanticide

The Chinese government has enacted three laws to try to prevent future occurrences of female infanticide. The Mother and Child Health Care Law of 1994 prevented sex identification of the fetus and prohibited the use of technology for the use of selective abortions based on the fetus's sex in order to protect female infants. [30] The Marriage Law and the Women's Protection Law both prohibit female infanticide and protect women's rights. [8] There is also a campaign started called "Care for Girls" which gives financial support to female-only families and supports equality between the genders. [30]

Underreporting of female babies

In December 2016, researchers at the University of Kansas reported that the sex disparity in China was likely exaggerated due to administrative under-reporting and that delayed registration of females, instead of the abortion and infanticide practices. The finding challenged the earlier assumptions that rural Chinese villagers killed their daughters on a massive scale and concluded that as many as 10 to 15 million missing women hadn't received proper birth registration since 1982. [31] [32] The underreporting is attributed to politics, with families trying to avoid penalties when girls were born, and local government concealing the lack of enforcement from the central government. This implied that the sex disparity of the Chinese newborns was likely exaggerated significantly in previous analyses. [33] [34] [35] Though the degree of data discrepancy, the challenge in relation to sex-ratio imbalance in China is still disputed among scholars. [36] [37]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "As soon as the little girls are born, they are plunged into the water in order to drown them, or force is applied to their bodies in order to suffocate them or they are strangled with human hands. And something even more deplorable is that there are servants who place the girl in the chamber pot or in the basin used for the birth, which is still filled with water and blood, and, shut away there, they die miserably. And what is even more monstrous is that if the mother is not cruel enough to take the life of her daughter, then her father-in-law, mother-in-law, or husband agitates her by their words to kill the girl." [9]
  2. ↑ "Infanticide through drowning and abandoning female babies is an evil custom left over from feudal times." [18]

Related Research Articles

Infanticide is the intentional killing of infants or offspring. Infanticide was a widespread practice throughout human history that was mainly used to dispose of unwanted children, its main purpose being the prevention of resources being spent on weak or disabled offspring. Unwanted infants were usually abandoned to die of exposure, but in some societies they were deliberately killed. Infanticide is generally illegal, but in some places the practice is tolerated, or the prohibition is not strictly enforced.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">One-child policy</span> Former population control policy in China

The one-child policy was a population planning initiative in China implemented between 1979 and 2015 to curb the country's population growth by restricting many families to a single child. The program had wide-ranging social, cultural, economic, and demographic effects, although the contribution of one-child restrictions to the broader program has been the subject of controversy. Its efficacy in reducing birth rates and defensibility from a human rights perspective have been subjects of controversy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sex-selective abortion</span> Pregnancy termination based on predicted sex

Sex-selective abortion is the practice of terminating a pregnancy based upon the predicted sex of the infant. The selective abortion of female fetuses is most common where male children are valued over female children, especially in parts of East Asia and South Asia, as well as in the Caucasus, Western Balkans, and to a lesser extent North America. Based on the third National Family and Health Survey, results showed that if both partners, mother and father, or just the father, preferred male children, sex-selective abortion was more common. In cases where only the mother prefers sons, this is likely to result in sex-selective neglect in which the child is not likely to survive past infancy.

Female infanticide is the deliberate killing of newborn female children. Female infanticide is prevalent in several nations around the world. It has been argued that the low status in which women are viewed in patriarchal societies creates a bias against females. The modern practice of gender-selective abortion is also used to regulate gender ratios.

Sex selection is the attempt to control the sex of the offspring to achieve a desired sex. It can be accomplished in several ways, both pre- and post-implantation of an embryo, as well as at childbirth. It has been marketed under the title family balancing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Girl</span> Young female human

A girl is a young female human, usually a child or an adolescent. While the term girl has other meanings, including young woman, daughter or girlfriend regardless of age, the first meaning is the most common one.

Gendercide is the systematic killing of members of a specific gender. The term is related to the general concepts of assault and murder against victims due to their gender, with violence against men and women being problems dealt with by human rights efforts. Gendercide shares similarities with the term 'genocide' in inflicting mass murders; however, gendercide targets solely one gender, being men or women. Politico-military frameworks have historically inflicted militant-governed divisions between femicide and androcide; gender-selective policies increase violence on gendered populations due to their socioeconomic significance. Certain cultural and religious sentiments have also contributed to multiple instances of gendercide across the globe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human sex ratio</span> Ratio of males to females in a population

The human sex ratio is the ratio of males to females in a population in the context of anthropology and demography. In humans, the natural sex ratio at birth is slightly biased towards the male sex. It is estimated to be about 1.10 or 1.06 or within a narrow range from 1.03 to 1.06 males per female. The sex ratio for the entire world population is approximately 101 males to 100 females.

The child sex ratio in India is defined as the number of females per thousand males in the age group 0–6 years in a human population. Thus it is equal to 1000 x the reciprocal of the sex ratio in the same age group, i.e. under age seven. An imbalance in this age group will extend to older age groups in future years. Currently, the ratio of males to females is generally significantly greater than 1, i.e. there are more boys than girls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Missing women</span> Fewer women than expected in a population

The term "missing women" indicates a shortfall in the number of women relative to the expected number of women in a region or country. It is most often measured through male-to-female sex ratios, and is theorized to be caused by sex-selective abortions, female infanticide, and inadequate healthcare and nutrition for female children. It is argued that technologies that enable prenatal sex selection, which have been commercially available since the 1970s, are a large impetus for missing female children.

Abortion in Armenia is legal on request up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, and in special circumstances between 12 weeks and 22 weeks. Abortion has been legal since 23 November 1955, when Armenia was a republic of the Soviet Union. Pregnancies may be ended on request by the pregnant woman until the twelfth week and for medical and social reasons until the twenty-second week with a doctor's approval. Since 2016, when a law banning sex-selective abortion was passed, mandatory counseling is required before abortion along with a three-day waiting period. The law has been criticized as using sex-selective abortion as a pretext to restrict access to abortion, although the government denied this, and claimed that it did not intend to question women's right to access safe abortion.

Rita Banerji (1967) is an author, photographer and gender activist from India. Her non-fiction book Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies was published in 2008. She is the founder of the 50 Million Missing online campaign to raise awareness of female gendercide in India.

Female foeticide in India is the abortion of a female foetus outside of legal methods. A research by Pew Research Center based on Union government data indicates foeticide of at least 9 million females in the years 2000–2019. The research found that 86.7% of these foeticides were by Hindus, followed by Sikhs with 4.9%, and Muslims with 6.6%. The research also indicated an overall decline in preference for sons in the time period.

It's a Girl: The Three Deadliest Words in the World is a 2012 documentary film which explores the practice of female infanticide. It was directed by Evan Grae Davis and focused primarily on India and China. The United Nations has estimated that up to 200 million females are "missing" today, most of whom would have lived in India and China. The film took four years to shoot.

Female infanticide in India has a history spanning centuries. Poverty, the dowry system, births to unmarried women, deformed infants, famine, lack of support services, and maternal illnesses such as postpartum depression are among the causes that have been proposed to explain the phenomenon of female infanticide in India.

For years, the census data in China has recorded a significant imbalance in the sex ratio toward the male population, meaning there are fewer women than men. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the missing women or missing girls of China. China's official census report from 2000 shows that there were 117 boys for every 100 girls. The sex imbalance in some rural areas is even higher, at 130 boys to 100 girls, compared to a global average of 105 or 106 boys to 100 girls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Female infanticide in Pakistan</span> Deliberate killing of female newborns in Pakistan

Female infanticide in Pakistan had been a common practice. But it is no longer a common practice due to steps taken by local polices and Governments and Ordinances.

Son preference in China is a gender preference issue underpinned by the belief that boys have more value than girls. In China, the bias towards male over female offspring is demonstrated by the sex ratio at birth (SRB).

Sex-selective abortion is the act of aborting a child due to its predicted sex. This practice gained popularity in the mid-1980s to early 1990s in South Korea, where selective female abortions were commonplace as male children were preferred. As a result, South Koreans aborted a much higher number of female fetuses than male ones in the 1980s and early 1990s. Historically, much of Korea's values and traditions were based on Confucianism, which dictates a patriarchal system, thus motivating the preference for sons over daughters. Additionally, even though the abortion ban existed, the combination of son preference and availability of sex-selective technology led to an increasing number of sex-selective abortions and boys born. As a result, South Korea experienced drastically high sex ratios around mid-1980s to early 1990s. However, in recent years, with the changes in family policies and modernization, attitudes towards son preference have changed, normalizing the sex ratio and lowering the number of sex-selective abortions. Additionally, during the entire 20th century South Korean women benefitted greatly from gender inequality declining at one of the fastest rates worldwide. However, there has been no explicit data collected on the number of induced sex selective abortions performed due to the abortion ban and controversy surrounding the topic. Therefore, scholars have been continuously analyzing and generating connections among sex-selection, abortion policies, gender discrimination, and other cultural factors.

References

  1. ↑ Milner 2000, pp. 238–239.
  2. 1 2 Mungello 2012, p. 148.
  3. ↑ Coale & Banister 1994, pp. 459–479.
  4. 1 2 White 2006, p. 200.
  5. 1 2 3 "China's latest census reports more balanced gender ratio - Xinhua | English.news.cn". 2022-07-05. Archived from the original on 2022-07-05. Retrieved 2022-07-05.
  6. ↑ "Hindu Bioethics, the Concept of Dharma and Female Infanticide in India Santishree Pandit", Genomics In Asia, Routledge, pp. 77–94, 2012-11-12, doi:10.4324/9780203040324-8, ISBN   9780203040324 , retrieved 2023-04-18
  7. ↑ "Burying Babies in China". Wesleyan Juvenile Offering. XXII: 40. March 1865. Archived from the original on 14 March 2020. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  8. 1 2 3 "BBC - Ethics - Abortion: Female infanticide". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-04-23.
  9. ↑ Mungello 2008, p. 17.
  10. ↑ Mungello 2008, p. 9.
  11. ↑ Lee 1981, p. 164.
  12. ↑ Mungello 2008, p. 10.
  13. ↑ Abeel 1844.
  14. ↑ Harrison 2008, p. 77.
  15. ↑ Mungello 2008, p. 13.
  16. ↑ Johnson 1985, p. 29.
  17. ↑ Kang, Inkoo (2019-08-09). "One Child Nation Is a Haunting Documentary About a Country's Attempts to Justify the Unjustifiable". Slate. ISSN   1091-2339 . Retrieved 2023-12-15.
  18. 1 2 Nie 2005, p. 50.
  19. 1 2 3 Chan, C. L. W., Yip, P. S. F., Ng, E. H. Y., Ho, P. C., Chan, C. H. Y., & Au, J. S. K. (2002). Gender selection in China: Its meanings and implications. Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics, 19(9), 426-430.
  20. ↑ National Bureau of Statistics of China. (2014). Total population by urban and rural residence and birth rate, death rate, natural growth rate by region [Data set]. Retrieved from China statistical yearbook 2014 Archived 2015-11-26 at the Wayback Machine , accessed 2 October 2019
  21. ↑ Parrot, Andrea (2006). Forsaken females : the global brutalization of women. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p.  53. ISBN   978-0742545793.
  22. 1 2 Zhu, W. X., Lu, L., & Hesketh, T. (2009). China’s excess males, sex selective abortion, and one child policy: Analysis of data from 2005 national intercensus survey. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 338(7700)
  23. ↑ Banister, J. (2004). Shortage of girls in China today. Journal of Population Research, 21(1), 19-45.
  24. 1 2 Zeng, Y., Tu, P., Gu, B., Xu, Y., Li, B., & Li, Y. (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.
  25. ↑ Female infanticide. (n.d.) Archived 2019-11-21 at the Wayback Machine BBC Ethics guide. Accessed 2 October 2019.
  26. ↑ Winkler 2005, p. 7.
  27. ↑ DeLugan 2013, pp. 649–650.
  28. ↑ Neuman, Scott; Schmitz, Rob (July 16, 2018). "Despite The End Of China's One-Child Policy, Births Are Still Lagging". npr.
  29. ↑ "Patriotism may hold key to China births challenge". South China Morning Post. 2018-06-19. Retrieved 2023-04-23.
  30. 1 2 3 "Infanticide, Abortion Responsible for 60 Million Girls Missing in Asia". Fox News. 2015-03-25. Retrieved 2023-04-23.
  31. ↑ "It's a myth that China has 30 million "missing girls" because of the one-child policy, a new study says". Quartz. 29 November 2016.
  32. ↑ Denyer, Simon (30 November 2016). "Researchers may have 'found' many of China's 30 million missing girls". Washington Post.
  33. ↑ Shi, Yaojiang; Kennedy, John James (December 2016). "Delayed Registration and Identifying the "Missing Girls" in China". The China Quarterly. 228: 1018–1038. doi: 10.1017/S0305741016001132 . ISSN   0305-7410.
  34. ↑ Jozuka, Emiko (1 December 2016). "Study finds millions of China's 'missing girls' actually exist". CNN.
  35. ↑ Zhuang, Pinghui (30 November 2016). "China's 'missing women' theory likely overblown, researchers say". South China Morning Post.
  36. ↑ Cai, Yong (2017). "Missing Girls or Hidden Girls? A Comment on Shi and Kennedy's "Delayed Registration and Identifying the 'Missing Girls' in China"". The China Quarterly. 231 (231): 797-803. doi:10.1017/S0305741017001060. S2CID   158924618.
  37. ↑ den Boer, Andrea; M. Hudson, Valerie (9 January 2017). "Have China's Missing Girls Actually Been There All Along?". New Security Beat.

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