Madras High Court issues Warning against Female Infanticide

Justice Devadas of the Madras High Court issued a warning to the people in Dharmapuri District against female infanticide and observed that the fathers are equally responsible for these crimes.

The case involved the bail plea of a woman who allegedly poisoned her eight day old daughter in 2012. Nagamani, 24, of Gundalpatti, already had a daughter and she allegedly didn’t want to raise a second daughter. The court directed the District Legal Services Authority to organize literacy camps in the area to enlighten people about the evil practice.

The judge reportedly stated that, “The child has not committed any sin. Its only sin is that it was born as a female child.” He said that Dharmapuri and Madurai were famous for this kind of social evil and that it is nothing but murder.

India was termed as the ‘most dangerous place in world to be born a girl’ in 2012, with females almost twice as likely to die before reaching the age of five, according to UN statistics. India was considered a place where girls are widely regarded as a burden to Indian families who fear the high costs of their weddings and resent spending money on their education only for them later to leave the home to marry. Many women abort pregnancies when they believe they will deliver a girl, often under pressure from their husbands or in-laws who favor boys. The discrimination has led to decrease in the sex ratio from 976 girls per 1000 boys in 1961 to 914 in 2011.