Infanticide in contemporary Slovakia: an evolutionary psychology perspective

1
Infanticide in contemporary Slovakia an
evolutionary psychology perspective

• Peter Sýkora
• Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences
• Comenius University, Bratislava

2
Motherhood stereotypes

• Infanticide should not exist
• Mothers viewed as automaton whose function is
  to pump out and nurture babies (breeding
  machines).
• Human mother primate mother mammal mother
• Mothers are genetically preprogrammed to nurture
  babies.

Unknown Florentine artist Madonna of the
Innocents
3
I. Infantice as paradox

• Traditional view
• infanticide is obviously unnatural (as e.g.
  homosexuality)
• it has to be something abnormal, deviation,
  social psychopatology etc.
• But
• But infanticide is with us all the time since
  our prehistory till present time (e.g. 36
  preindustrial societies)
• Infanticide is not uncommon among animals

4
Sarah Hrdy

• Infanticide by males among langur monkeys
• Infanticide is a part of reproductive strategy
• Infanticide in birds, rodents, carnivores,
  pinnipeds, primates
• 16 genera and 35 species of primates - infant
  mortality
• Langur monkeys 33,
• Mountain gorillas14

5
Terminology 1
Infanticide in a broader sense Infanticide
child homicide, killing of a child by another
person children as victims of homicide Homicide
killing of one person by another murder,
manslaughter

• Diversity of definitions what is a child in
  infanticide literature
• Child individual bellow the age of adulhood
• 0-17 year old
• lt15, lt14, lt13, lt 12, lt8, lt 5, lt 4 years of age
  
• lt 18, lt 20
• Generally child victims lt 6 year homicides
  within family

6
Terminology 2
Infanticide in a narrow sense Infanticide
killing of an infant (baby) lt 12
months (XIXc. growing horror of the large-scale
killing of unwanted infants - British law
killing of a child by its mother within the first
12 months of life) Neonaticide killing of a
newborn lt 24 hrs (Resnick, 1969), lt 48
hrs Filicide killing of a child by a
parent Neonaticide almost 100 maternal
filicide
7
Infanticide categories
Male
Teenagers
8
Child homicides in Australia1989-90
(Alder and Polk, 2001)
9
Child homicide Australia-sex1989-90
(Alder and Polk, 2001)
10
Child homicides in USA 1998
(Alder and Polk, 2001)
11
Child homicide USA-sex
(Alder and Polk, 2001)
12
Age distribution of victims of child homicides
in Slovakia during 1981-1997
13
Infanticide and homicide rate

• WHO Statistics for 1995, sample of 29 countries
  Europe, North and South Amerika, Australia
• Infanticide rate 7.2 ? 5.4 (per 100 000 births)
• Lithuania 19.6, Hungary 19.5, Russia 18.5,
  Slovakia 6.63 (1981-200), Spain 2.1, Greece 2.0,
  Sweden 1.9
• Homicide rate 13.9 ? 13.7 (per 100 000
  population) (excl. Colombia 146)
• Neonaticide rates do not correlate with homicide
  rates, but correlate with suicide rates

14
Infanticide statistics

• Infanticide rate remains constant over several
  decades, while overall murder rates steadily
  increase
• Is there are any pattern?

15
Births and neonaticides in Slovakia during
1981-2000
Avg neonaticide rates 1980-90s 6.3 ? 3,02
Data Slovak Police Statistics
16
Births and neonaticides in England and Wales
1979-1999
Data British Interpol
17
Neonaticide - tip of the iceberg?

• Accidental nature of the discovery of some of
  these newborn bodies in dumsters or sewarage
• How many undiscovered neonaticides?
• SIDS (sudden infant death syndrom) autopsy
  revealed in UK that 42 infanticides out of 81
  originally certified as SIDS

18
Child (lt18) homicide in Victoria 1985-1995 (4.7
mil inhabitants)

• FILICIDES 58
• Neonaticides 11
• Fatal physical assault 19
• (attempted) suicide 18
• Psychiatric disturbance 6
• Other 4
• NON-FILICIDES 32
• Honour contests 7

19
Infanticide typology

• Philip Resnick (1969-70) classical work
• 37 cases, 13 countries, 1751-1967
• mothers killing older children are frequently
  psychotic, depressed, suicidal, but not mothers
  killing their newborns
• Cheryl Meyer et al (2001)
• USA, 1990-1999, 219 cases (37 neonaticides)
• Ignored pregnancy - denied pregnancy(neonaticides)
  37
• Abuse-related filicide (during physical
  assault) 15
• Filicide due to neglect 76
• Assisted fillicide (romantic partner) 12
• Purposeful fillicide - mental illness 79

20
Motivations for neonaticide

• Unwanted pregnancies and births
• Rarely a premeditated act
• Social stigma of pregnancy outside marriage,
  shame, fear
• Unwed young women
• Highly unstable liaisons between partners
• rationality not pathology in decision
  neonaticidal women do not kill anyone but their
  newborns and latter under better conditions they
  are devoted mothers

21
Infanticide socio-psychological explanation

• Neonaticide product of pathology
• Childhood trauma
• Temporary psychosis
• Hormonal disbalance
• Societal influnce permissive sex education, etc.

22
Infanticide evolutionary explanation

• M. Daly and M. Wilson (1988), S. Pinker (1997)
• Parental psychology has been shaped by
  natural selection to make adaptive decisions
  about the magnitude of parental commitments
• Capacity for neonaticide is built into the
  biological design of our parental emotions
• Parental investment is a limited resource
  trade-off alternatives mammalian mother has to
  decide wehether to allocate it to their
  newborns or to their current or future offspring.
  

23
Daly-Wilson three main causes of infanticide

• Cross-cultural study (HRAF database)
• 112 infanticide cases, 35 societies
• Paternity uncertainity
• Poor infant quality
• Lack of parental resources
• Lack of paternal or social support
• Lack of sufficient resources
• Unwed mother
• Too many kids or too soon

24
Cinderella syndrom

• Martin Daly and Margo Wilson
• Homicide (1988)
• The Truth about Cinderella (1998)

25
II. Neonaticide as post-natal abortion
contraception
abortion
neonaticide
birth
conception
26
Anonymous drop-offs in the past
27
Anonymous drop-offs in present
28
Births and abortions in Slovakia 1960-2000
29
Births and abortions in Slovakia 1976-2000
1957 abortion law
1986 liberal abortion law
1962 abortion boards
30
Contraception/ abortion
Correl. - 0.955
31
U-shaped pattern of abortion in Sweden and
Slovakia
32
Births versus mothers age SK and SW
33
U-shaped pattern of abortion in Sweden, Slovakia
and USA (1994)
34
U-shaped pattern of abortion in Slovakia in 1994
and 2000
35
Abortions per 1000 births in 1994 (and 2000)
36
U-shaped pattern of age-related abortions
Barrett et al. (2002)
37
Risk of infanticide
24
12
23
9
14
3
38
Neonaticides and abortions
39
III. Sex selective infanticide
40
Trivers-Willard hypothesis (1973)

• 1. One sex has a greater variance in reproductive
  success
• 2. Parents (mothers) vary in their resource base
• EVOLUTION of differences in sex preference of
  offspring

41
Trivers-Willard effect bias sex ratio

• Higher reproductive potential of males over
  females in good conditions
• Mothers in good condition prefer invest in sons
• Mothers in poor conditions prefer invest in
  daughters

42
Preference of sons India

• India 960 women 1000 men
• Women are more likely aborted
• Female mortality are 40 higher then male
• Naonaticide by family member or professional
  killer
• Tamil Nadu state 3000 female neonaticides a
  year
• female selective abortion (ultrasound), eg. In
  Bombay (1984) 7999 out of 8000 aborted foetuses
  were females
• Institution of dowry family of bride must pay
• Dowry and wedding 1 milion rupees (35 000
  USD)/avg civil servant earns 100 000 rupees a
  year

43
Preference of sons China

• 1979 one-child policy
• PER 100 GIRLS
• 1982 108.5 boys
• 1990 111.3 boys
• 2000 116.9 boys
• 40 milion young Chinese men will not be able to
  marry

44
Missing women in Asia 2002 (in millions)

• China 40.6
• India 37.1
• Bangladesh 3.5
• Pakistan 3.3
• Afganistan 0.8
• Taiwan 0.6
• Nepal 0.6

45
Preference of daughters Mukogodo (L. Cronk,
1989)

• Mukogodo people (central Kenya) changed from
  foragers to sheep and goat herding
• Neighboring people (Masai, Samburu) consider them
  as low-ranking people
• Mukogodo acquire cattle, sheep, goat mostly as
  bridewealth when daughters married men from
  neighboring herding tribes.
• 98 girls to 66 boys (0-4 year old)
• No evidence for infanticide, but smaller parental
  care of sons (nutrition, visits to hospital)

46
Preference of daughters Hungarian Gypsy
population (Bereczkei and Dunbar, 1997)

• Gypsies 86.7 sons per 100 daughters
• Hungarians 142.9 sons to 100 daughters
• Gypsy mothers are more likely to abort after
  having one or more daughters
• Gypsy daughters are 50 longer brest-fed
• Gypsy women marry up the social scale than men
  (such women have infants with lower mortality
  rate)
• Urban Gypsy population invest into daughters even
  more than rural

47
Infanticide in Slovakia - sex and age categories
48
Sex ratio of killed newborns before after the
collapse of Communism in 1989
49
Neonaticides in Slovakia sex ratio of victims
30/10
(p lt0.05)
63/35
33/25
(p n.s)
Wilcoxon signed rank test
50
Prices after the fall of communism in 1989
51
Is a male-selective infanticide in Slovakia a
case of Trivers-Willard effect?

• There is a difference in socioeconomic
  situation in Slovakia between 1980s and
  1990s.

• Is this an universal phenomenon in all
  post-communist countries?