Researchers Find Widespread Infanticide of Girls in India

In what is purported to be the first documentary evidence of the extent of infanticide in India, U.S. researchers reported Saturday that 72% of all deaths of infant girls in a rural southern India region were the result of such murders.

Speaking at an American Assn. for the Advancement of Science meeting, the researchers said one in every 10 female births in rural areas of Tamil Nadu state ended in infanticide, and they suspect that a much higher percentage of infanticides actually occurred. The slayings of female babies occurred because males are considered to have higher value to families, in part because they are better able to support parents in their old age.

The study sheds new light on previous reports that the Indian subcontinent and China have as many as 60 million fewer women than would normally be expected.

The shortage is based on analysis of expected birth ratios and survival in childhood, as well as on male/female ratios elsewhere in the world.

In the United States and Europe, there are approximately 105 women for every 100 men. In Africa and Latin America, where childhood mortality is higher for females, the numbers of men and women are about equal. But in China and the Indian subcontinent, there are only about 94 women for every 100 men.

Nutritionist Sabu M. George of Cornell University spent four years living in Tamil Nadu studying the health of children. Among the study population of 13,000 in six remote villages, there were 759 live births, of which 381 were female. Among this group, 56 died in the first 2.5 years--23 males and 33 females. Nineteen of the female deaths were infanticides that George confirmed by talking to the families involved. There were no male infanticides during the same period.