ELAHE MASSUMI

Female Infanticide

Music Composition: Sussan Deyhim
Produced by Elahe Massumi

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In the areas in which female infanticide is prevalent, in China, India, Korea, and Taiwan, there have been and currently are massive deficits of females. Male babies were valued as potential food providers and contributors to the family income while females were another mouth to feed and could only be married off at great expense to the family. In this time of desperation, reducing liabilities, such as female children, was seen as a viable survival technique. The peasants in these province, who were dependent on the land and the crops, did the only thing they could think of to survive under these conditions--they killed their female babies.