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Discrimination sexuelle et infanticide en Inde du Sud

Sexual Discrimination and Infanticide in South India
Stéphanie Vella
p. 29-43

Abstracts

In India, sex ratios of the population have been diminishing regularly since 1901. Infanticide of girls and female foetus’ selective abortion are two of the practices which can explain these results. In the patriarchal Indian family, girls are not wanted because they are considered to be a socio-economic burden for their parents throughout their life. For this article, we conducted a spatial study at different levels in South India so as to map the abnormalities of the juvenile sex ratios; they show significant variations in discriminatory behaviours, particularly in Tamil Nadu. The objective of this article is to provide the first elements of a response as to why gender discrimination exists in certain regions of South India, notably by introducing the concept of diffusion. Despite the lack of direct statistics on these phenomena, we observe, thanks to fieldwork studies, that girls infanticide is giving way to a generalization and diffusion of practices of embryos’ selection, in a nexus of deep discrimination settling and modernity access.

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References

Bibliographical reference

Stéphanie Vella, “Discrimination sexuelle et infanticide en Inde du Sud”Espace populations sociétés, 2004/1 | 2004, 29-43.

Electronic reference

Stéphanie Vella, “Discrimination sexuelle et infanticide en Inde du Sud”Espace populations sociétés [Online], 2004/1 | 2004, Online since 26 January 2009, connection on 29 March 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/eps/495; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/eps.495

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About the author

Stéphanie Vella

Université de Bordeaux III - Michel de Montaigne, Laboratoire Dymset, Domaine Universitaire, 33607 Pessac Cedex, Stephanie.vella@free.fr

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Copyright

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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