Infanticide fear in Bangladesh

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32847, 22 February 1972, Page 17

Infanticide fear in Bangladesh

(By WILLIAM MANN, of the Associated Press, through N.Z.P.A.)

DACCA, February 20.

Thousands of unwanted babies are about to be born in Bangladesh, and social scientists are trying to head off an epidemic of infanticide they fear could spread through the country.

Mainly because of a lower educational level, such attitudes are more prevalent in the backwoods areas than the cities.

To combat this, Mrs Shafiq said, the organisation, in cooperation with other groups, was sending teams into the field to seek out pregnant girls and to set up institutions to care for them. If babies are murdered in the bush, it will be difficult for the organisation or other government agencies to learn of it because of poor communications, and the fact that most of such crimes probably would go unreported. Based partly on Moslem teachings but mostly on the local interpretation of it, many raped girls have been sent away by their parents, some even by their husbands, and told not to return until the birth—and not to return with a baby.

"For the time being they are thrown out of their homes,” said Mrs Shafiq, “and if a girl doesn’t give up the child she will be thrown out permanently.” Among the Bengalis, a girl who is pregnant out of wedlock hurts her family and herself, Mrs Shafiq said. “An older sister might have difficulty getting married because of the younger sister having an illegitimate child,” she said.

Moslem law strongly condemns adultery in women, but makes allowances for rape victims, especially in war time.

"But the social custom that has evolved here changed that,” Mrs Shafiq said.

The fathers are Pakistani soldiers, the mothers Bengali girls and women raped during last year’s wave of terror designed to break the Bengali nationalist movement.

There are varying estimates of the number of pregnancies caused by the soldiers, but the Bangladesh Central Organisation for Women’s Rehabilitation says a preliminary survey puts the figure easily as high as 25,000. It says that at least 50,000 girls were assaulted by the soldiers.