Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity | Female Infanticide and Fetal Murder

Female infanticide is the intentional killing of an infant, and female feticide (or fetal murder) is the intentional destruction of a fetus for the sole reason that it is female. Historically, female infanticide has occurred on a global scale. Various studies have reported its practice among Arabian tribes, among the Yanomani in Brazil, and in ancient Rome. In nineteenth-century India it was common practice to bury a female child alive by placing her in an earthen pitcher, with cane sugar in her mouth and cotton in her hands. Burying the pitcher in the ground, women would chant, "Gur kaayeen punee kateen, aap na ayeen bhayee nuu khaleen" (Eat sugar, weave cotton, don't come back, send your brother). There were many other methods used to kill a female baby: starving her to death, suffocating her by wrapping her tightly in a quilt, poisoning her, strangling her, drowning her, or breaking her spinal cord by snapping it. These methods...