User:ARO1209/Female infanticide in China

(Add ) Every year in China and India alone, there are close to two million instances of some form of female infantcide .

History

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

(Add to History )Confucianism

The influence of Confucius' teachings also has had an influence on female infantcide in China. Confucius regarded male children as having more value than female children, The idea that male children will provide and take care of their eldery and many traditions in the culture are male driven leading to a male bias that they are more desirable in the long run.

19th century

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. 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. 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. Missionary David Abeel reported in 1844 that between one fourth and one third of all female children were killed at birth or soon after.

In 1878 French Jesuit missionary, Gabriel Palatre, collated documents from 13 provinces 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.

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.[15]

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.[16]

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]

(ADD)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.

(AddNew Enrty) 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, abandoned, and killed. If parents had more than one child they would be punished by having thier wages reduced or losing social services. 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 infantcide more desirable solution.

(Added)Preventing Female Infantcide

The Chinese governemnt has inacted three law to try and prevent furture occurences of female infantcide. The Mother and Child Health Care Law of 1994 prevented sex identification of the fetus and prohibts the use of technology for the use of selctive abortions based on the fetuses sex, in order to protect female infants.The Marraige Law and the Women's Protection Law both prohibit female infantcide and protects women's rights. There are also a campaign started called " Care for Girls" which guve financial support for femal only families and to support eqauality between the genders.

(Added)Female Infantcides Effects On Population And Society

Female infantcide, especially as a result the of One-Child Policy, has cause a imbalance of genders and available females of childbearing age as a resulting in a decline of population and births.

In 2017 there were under 13 birth per 1000 people. There were also 33 million more men than women.

The ratio imbalance between childbearing females and males because of female infantcide has also lead to the rise of sex trafficing and bridial kidnapping of females or importing brides from other counturies.