Should women who kill their babies be punished? That might sound like an absurd question to ask, but in fact a group in India is arguing that women who commit female infanticide are themselves victims and should not be punished.
The BBC reported this month on the controversy in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It cites surveys suggesting that the infanticide rate among female infants is as high as 1.6 percent of all live female births. In some areas, the BBC claims, the rate of infanticide may approach 15 percent.
The standard response, not surprisingly, is to arrest, try and jail women who the state can prove have killed their infants (the BBC mentions that two such cases resulted in life in prison for the convicted women). But the Campaign Against Female Infanticide maintains that the women involved are themselves victims of violence and threats from family members and that punishing them simply exacerbates the problems with poverty that their families face.
The BBC quoted retired Bombay judge Justice Suresh as saying that women have no choice but to kill female infants,
The decision to kill the baby is made by her husband and parents-in-law. If she disobeys, she has to face the wrath of the family.
On the other side is Tamil Nadu’s Women’s Commission who argues that while penalties against women who commit infanticide may be too severe, that removing any and all punishment would send a signal that female infanticide was acceptable.
But, according to the BBC, the anti-infanticide activists “say even milder punishment could leave the mother with social stigma and cause several psychological problems.”
If you have a society in which “milder punishment” from the state leaves social stigma and psychological problems distinct and more severe than the stigma and psychological problems attendant in killing one’s child, then Tamil Nadu has even larger problems than the anti-infanticide activists will admit.
Source:
India rights campaign for infanticide mothers. Sampath Kumar, The BBC, July 17, 2003.