Infanticide

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A mother kills her child, Le Petit Journal 1908

Under infanticide (even infanticide , from lat. Infanticidium ) refers to the killing of a child usually by a parent . The killing of a newborn is called neonaticide referred.

definition

Resnick (1970) defines neonatal as the killing of a child within 24 hours of birth, infanticide as the killing of a child from one day to one year of age, and filicide as the killing of children over the age of one year.

Statistics and motives

This article or paragraph describes the situation in Germany , Austria and Switzerland . Help me to describe the situation in other countries.

The survey was 0.6 per 100,000 children under 15 years of age in Sweden (Somander & Rammer, 1991), up to 2.5 per 100,000 children under 18 years of age in the USA (Jason, Gilliland & Tyler, 1983) and 5 per 100,000 children in Finland and Austria. It is believed that 2 to 10% of the cases as sudden infant death syndrome are to be registered, a violent subject and in reality are infanticide (Emery, 1985).

Between two thirds and three quarters of child killings are carried out by the birth mothers. According to a study by Raič, the father was the perpetrator in 18% of the cases.

In 1969, Resnick examined 131 judicial cases in which mothers had killed their children through interviews and divided these cases into five categories according to motive (excluding neonatalicide):

  • Altruistic filicide: killing in combination with suicide of the perpetrator or to save the child from real or imaginary suffering (56% of cases).
  • Acutely psychotic filicide: killing under the influence of psychotic symptoms, epilepsy or delirium (24%).
  • Killing of an unwanted child (11%).
  • Accidental filicide or fatal battered child syndrome: the accidental death of a child due to physical abuse (7%).
  • Revenge on the spouse: killing the common child to cause harm to the spouse (2%)

Wilczynski (1997) later defined the following motives regardless of the sex of the perpetrator:

  • "Retaliating killings": killing of the common child in order to get revenge on the (ex) partner,
  • Jealousy or rejection by the victim, usually the father is the perpetrator,
  • unwanted child as the most common reason for neonatalicide,
  • excessive physical punishment of the child for crying or disobedience,
  • Altruism: "mercy killing" of a sick or mentally retarded child or due to postpartum depression ,
  • psychotic parent,
  • Munchausen proxy syndrome ,
  • sexual abuse ,
  • Neglect with no intention of harming or killing the child, as well as reasons unknown.

Older studies mainly focused on the motives of the mothers, later that, according to D'Orbans (1979), a percentage majority among men belong to the group “ parents who abuse their children ”. In most cases, this was preceded by a stimulus from the child (crying, vomiting, refusal to eat, etc.). The current police crime statistics assume a brightfield proportion of 43.5% offenders in child abuse. On the other hand, neonaticides are statistically less likely to be committed by fathers (Stanton & Simpson, 2002) and only one case of conviction is known.

The official police crime statistics in Germany show a decrease in registered cases of child homicides. In 2006, 202 children were victims of homicides, compared to 293 in 2000. 37 cases were murder , 55 cases manslaughter and 12 cases bodily harm resulting in death . An ongoing study by the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony under Christian Pfeiffer shows an increased rate in eastern Germany according to evaluations of around 900 to 1,000 judicially closed cases of infanticide. According to Pfeiffer, the reasons are social isolation and poverty as well as excessive demands on young mothers in their motherhood. The long-term study by Werner Johann Kleemann , director of the Institute for Forensic Medicine at the University of Leipzig , has come to the conclusion that there is no evidence that children in eastern Germany die more often from abuse or neglect than in the west.

In 2015, 16 children were murdered in Germany. The probability that a child will be murdered in Germany is around 1 in 200,000,000 per day.

Child killings in so-called developing countries

In countries in which extramarital sexual intercourse is socially sanctioned and / or in which no medical contraceptive methods are available or in which there is little knowledge about them, infanticide occurs regularly. In Pakistan , a country dominated by a conservative Islamic male society, where abortion and adultery are illegal and in some cases threatened with the death penalty, unwanted extra-marital pregnancies and births are nonetheless common. According to estimates by the Pakistani Edhi Foundation, around 1,100 newborns are killed every year. The infants, some of which were cruelly killed, are often simply disposed of in the garbage.

history

Since ancient times , the familiar society the killing of young talent in times of need, of hunger or for other reasons. Great philosophers such as Plato and Seneca advocated the widespread custom of exposing or actively killing “deformed” newborns. In contrast, Tacitus reported that Jews view it as a crime to kill late-born children. And Josephus testified in the 1st century that it is forbidden in Judaism to cause abortion.

In the Roman Empire , the patria potestas of the head of the family extended to the life and death of all family members. Newborn babies had to be laid at his feet and he decided whether to raise the child. However, rejected children were often not killed, but abandoned and could be raised as slaves by anyone . This right was not abolished in the Roman Empire until 374 AD after the increasing dominance of Christianity, which conveyed Jewish legal culture. The ban had to be enforced with draconian penalties.

Hundreds of children's skeletons were found in the sewer system of a bathhouse in Ascalon in late antiquity . The bones of male newborns clearly predominate, as a DNA analysis showed. It is believed that the bathhouse was also used as a brothel and that the bones indicate the systematic infanticide of male children. Male offspring could generally not follow in the professional footsteps of the mothers and thus relieve them. Numerous baby skeletons have repeatedly been found around the ruins of Roman brothels.

In China , since ancient times, female and deformed offspring in particular have been killed or left to die by being abandoned or "not lifted" (buju 不 舉) after birth. The legal source Han Feizi (3rd century B.C.E.) notes on such gender selection: 父母 之 於 子 也 ， 產 男 則 相 賀 ， 產 女 則 殺 之. ⋯ 慮 其 後便, 計 之 長 利 也. “(With the behavior of) parents towards (their) children (it is like this): If a boy is born to them, then they congratulate each other; if a girl is born to them, they kill her. [... That it is so is because the parents] have their later convenience in mind and plan for long-term benefit. "

In medieval Judeo-Christian Europe, the reasons for killing a child were mainly the illegitimate of the child and the poverty of the parents (Moseley, 1986), but also malformations of the child.

From the Middle Ages to the modern age , it was not uncommon for parents to kill, abandon or sell their child because they could not feed them. It was against this background that stories like those of Hansel and Gretel emerged . At the time, infanticide in Europe was often punished like murder of adults.

In famine, e.g. There have also been cases of cannibalistic infanticide, for example due to poor harvests or wars, but deliberate slaughtering has always remained the exception and forced corpses. The intentional killing of one's own or other offspring for consumption has always been considered one of the greatest breaking of taboos in large parts of the world and was therefore repeatedly used as an accusation in propaganda and persecution for the dehumanization of others (e.g. "witches" and Jews) as well as in literary terms processed, e.g. B. in Snow White .

In 1516, the Bamberg Embarrassing Neck Court Regulations and the Court Regulations of Emperor Charles V issued new regulations, which provided stakes , living burials or tearing the body apart with red-hot pliers as the usual punishment for child murderers . They should act as a deterrent. The motive or the circumstances were not considered in this criminal offense law (only the act counts, not the causes or the motive), which is why the penalties did not have a deterrent effect.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the number of murders increased, especially of children born out of wedlock, as women feared pillory and public punishment . In addition, there were marriage restrictions , which made it impossible to give birth in marriage in many cases. With the rise in killings, a process of rethinking began in the mid-18th century. The change in medical training at the universities and the gradual introduction of forensic medical assessment in the various territories of the empire led to the beginning of a "psychiatization" of the act. However, until a few years ago, a legal distinction was made between married and single perpetrators (Section 217). After an often concealed pregnancy, the latter continued to be assumed to act rationally and thus selfishly, while wives were per se considered to be mentally confused. You were not threatened with a dishonorable punishment after childbirth. Due to the spread of child murder stories through medical case collections, literary texts on this topic were subsequently also created. (For example Wagner's “ Die Kindermörderin ” (drama) or the Gretchen tragedy from Goethe's “ Faust I ”.)

At the end of the 18th century, the death penalty for child murders became rarer and in 1813 a prison sentence was laid down in the Bavarian Penal Code (until 1848, the death penalty was possible in repeat cases).

In modern times, the motif found its literary expression in works such as The Girl on the Cliffs .

Gender of children killed

In almost all societies in which infanticide is practiced, female children in particular are affected ( femicide , see sex-selective abortion ). The killing of female children commonly occurs in patriarchal cultures, where there is a strong preference for men and a devaluation of women. Misogyny and certain economic aspects are cited as the two most important reasons that the killing of female children is more common than the killing of male children. Most religions have always condemned infanticide, regardless of gender.

Legal position

Germany (until 1998)

Up until April 1, 1998, the old version of Section 217 of the German Criminal Code contained a special standard in the context of homicides, which was last named as infanticide . It was repealed with the Sixth Law for the Reform of Criminal Law of 1998. This offense established a milder scope of punishment and represented a privilege compared to other homicides . Thus, the then § 217 a. F. StGB manslaughter or murder .

The offense of infanticide comprised the killing of the illegitimate child by the mother during or immediately after the birth . The threatened minimum prison sentence was 3 years, therefore, had the offense crimes character within the meaning of § 12 of the Criminal Code. The maximum sentence was fifteen years imprisonment. Less serious cases had a sentence of six months to five years (until 1953 (Federal Republic) or 1968 (GDR) the sentence was at least 2 years).

The privilege arose from the mother's psychological predicament to give birth or to have given birth to a child under the circumstances of illegitimacy. The situation has become obsolete as a result of the social development that has meanwhile accepted the illegitimate (formerly: illegitimate) of children as usual. The mother's psychological predicament due to an illegitimate birth can now lead to the assumption of a less serious case of manslaughter .

The privilege could only benefit the mother. Participants in their act, i.e. assistants or instigators , were punished ( according to a precedent decision of the Reichsgericht from 1940) for participating in Section 211 StGB ( murder ) or Section 212 StGB ( manslaughter ) (Section 50 old version, from 1975 Section 28 and Section 29 StGB). (Whether this legal opinion did justice to the wording of the law must remain open here.)

For the illegitimate of a child, it was not the civil law provisions of family law that were decisive, but the actual circumstances. The mother was not allowed to be married to the biological father in a formally valid marriage, neither at conception nor at the time of birth. The killing of the child conceived in adultery according to civil law was therefore only punishable as childicide.

The killing had to be done intentionally during or immediately after the birth, that is, during the period of constant emotional excitement. The fact could also be realized by failure , z. B. by leaving the newborn unsupervised.

In the GDR , the killing of a (legitimate or illegitimate) child by the mother during or immediately after the birth was no longer punished according to the above provisions from 1968 onwards, but as manslaughter with imprisonment from six months to ten years (Section 113 No. 2 Criminal Code ).

Germany (since 1998)

Since 1998, infanticide has no longer been privileged over other homicides. The penalty framework has therefore increased upwards. Such acts are usually punished as manslaughter with several years imprisonment, but can potentially also be classified as murder.

Austria

According to Section 79 of the Austrian Criminal Code (StGB), the offense of killing the child at birth is a privilege compared to the basic offense of intentional homicides, murder ( Section 75 of the StGB) . The offense occurs when the mother takes the child during during the birth process or immediately afterwards (if it is still under the influence of the birth process) kills. The privilege can only benefit the mother of the child (cf. Section 14 (2) StGB).

Switzerland

A mother who kills her child during childbirth or while she is under the influence of the birth process is punished for infanticide under Article 116 of the Criminal Code.

literature

  • Behnke Kinney, Anne, “Infant Abandonment in Early China”, Early China 18.1993: 107–38.
  • Bejarano-Alomia, Pedro-Paul, infanticide, criminological, legal history and comparative law considerations after the abolition of § 217 StGB old version Dissertation FU Berlin, 2008.
  • Carl Burak, Michele Remington: Death in the Cradle. Why did Michele Remington kill her baby? (= Heyne books 1, Heyne general series. No. 9792). Heyne, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-453-09318-6 (experience report on infanticide in postpartum depression).
  • Andrea Czelk: "Privilege" and prejudice. Positions of the bourgeois women's movement on illegitimate law and infanticide in the German Empire (= legal history and gender research. Vol. 3). Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2005, ISBN 3-412-17605-2 (also: Hanover, University, dissertation, 2004).
  • Peter Dreier: Child murder in the German Reich. With special consideration of Bavaria in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tectum, Marburg 2006, ISBN 3-8288-9111-X .
  • Hermann Kleist: The crime of infanticide. Karow, Dorpat 1862 (Dorpat, University, dissertation, 1862), digitized version .
  • Frank Häßler, Renate Schepker, Detlef Schläfke (eds.): Infant death and infanticide. MWV Medizinisch-Wissenschaftliche Verlags-Gesellschaft, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-939069-23-2 .
  • Frank Häßler, Günther Häßler: A horrible act. Ten chapters on infanticide in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania from four centuries. MWV Medizinisch-Wissenschaftliche Verlags-Gesellschaft, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-941468-00-9 .
  • Marijke Lichte: Germany's dead children. Child killing as a result of acts of violence, sexual abuse and neglect. A historical-sociological study on the subject of infanticide. Schardt, Oldenburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-89841-315-2 .
  • Maren Lorenz : Criminal Bodies - Troubled Minds. The standardization of the individual in forensic medicine and psychiatry of the Enlightenment. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-930908-44-1 , inbes. Pp. 134–188, (Simultaneously: Saarbrücken, Universität, Dissertation, 1998).
  • Gerlinde Mauerer: Medea's legacy. Child murder and the mother ideal (= feminist theory. Vol. 43). Milena, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-85286-096-2 .
  • Kerstin Michalik: child murder. Social and legal history of infanticide in the 18th and early 19th centuries using the example of Prussia (= History series. (Vol. 42). Centaurus, Pfaffenweiler 1997, ISBN 3-8255-0117-5 (also: Hamburg, University, dissertation, 1995)).
  • Kirsten Peters: Child murder is considered a fine art. An examination of the history of the subject of the literature of the 18th century = epistemata Series: literary studies. (Vol. 350). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3-8260-1998-9 (also: Bochum, University, dissertation, 2000).
  • Christiane Schlang: Fatal parental violence. Psychiatric evaluation of data from a nationwide multicenter study (reporting period 1985 to 1989). Psychiatrie-Verlag, Bonn 2006, ISBN 3-88414-407-3 (At the same time: Frankfurt am Main, University, dissertation, 2005).
  • Katharina Schrader: premarital, extramarital, illegitimate ... because of the great shame. Infanticide in the 17th and 18th centuries in the Hildesheim offices of Marienburg, Ruthe, Steinbrück and Steuerwald. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 2006, ISBN 3-8067-8528-7 .
  • Judith Schuler: Infanticide. Biological and social aspects. An investigation based on case studies from New Guinea (= Bremen Asia-Pacific Studies. Vol. 12 (recte: 11)). Lit, Münster et al. 1993, ISBN 3-89473-522-8 (at the same time: Göttingen University, dissertation, 1992).
  • Miriam Weinschenk: § 217 StGB - Consequences of the omission of a norm (= Konstanzer Schriften zur Rechtswwissenschaft. Vol. 207). Hartung-Gorre, Konstanz 2004, ISBN 3-89649-902-5 (also: Heidelberg, University, dissertation, 2003).
  • Annegret Wiese: Mothers who kill. Psychoanalytic knowledge and forensic truth (= New Criminological Studies. Vol. 11). Fink, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-7705-2849-2 (also: Munich, University, Dissertation, 1992).

Web links

Commons : Child Killing  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: infanticide  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wiktionary: child murder  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wiktionary: Infantizid  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kerstin Eichenmüller, Bruno Heindl, Veronika Steinkohl: Killing acts in the family environment. (PDF) 2007, archived from the original on September 27, 2007 ; accessed on February 22, 2013 (research at the Department of Psychology at the University of Regensburg).
  2. ↑ a b Hanna Putkonen et al .: Filicide in Austria and Finland - A register-based study on all filicide cases in Austria and Finland 1995-2005 . In: BMC Psychiatry . Vol. 9, November 21, 2009, pp. 74 , doi : 10.1186 / 1471-244X-9-74 , PMID 19930581 , PMC 2784763 (free full text).
  3. ↑ a b APA : Most child murders in the western world in Finland. Kleine Zeitung , December 11, 2011, archived from the original on August 17, 2014 ; accessed on December 11, 2011 : “In Sweden the proportion is just a little more than a tenth of that. The study also shows that mothers with mental health problems most frequently become perpetrators. Those responsible committed suicide in 75 out of 200 cases. "
  4. ↑ Sudden infant death syndrome can be used as a cover for violence. Doctors Zeitung , February 9, 2007, accessed on December 17, 2011 : “In Germany, 400 to 600 babies die every year from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). However, it is estimated that one in ten of these children are actually victims of abuse or killings. Especially if children have been to clinics several times before, doctors should pay attention. "
  5. ↑ BMFSFJ : Press conference: Interim balance sheet 'Early help'. (Video) youtube.de, November 27, 2008, accessed on September 25, 2010 (entry point at 50 seconds): “Who are the perpetrators: Then in two thirds of the cases it is the birth mothers, in one third of the cases either the biological father or the mother's new partner. "
  6. ↑ Jens Blankennagel: Mothers kill their children more often than fathers. Berliner Zeitung , May 8, 2007, retrieved on September 25, 2010 (interview with Rudolf Egg, criminal psychologist and director of the Central Criminological Office in Wiesbaden): “At that time, the Federal Criminal Police Office investigated (1983 note) 1,650 complete homicides on children. The results surprised many: only in 80 cases was the perpetrator a stranger, 283 cases remained unsolved. But in 1,030 cases the parents killed - and even more amazingly: the fathers only killed 305 times, but the mothers 725 times. It can be assumed that this shows the tip of the iceberg: The proportion of women who beat their children is also likely to be high. "
  7. ↑ Dörmann, Uwe: Complete homicides on children. Special police statistics for the period from 1968 to 1982. pp. 476–477 . Ed .: Kriminalistik , Volume 37. Verlag für Kriminalistische Fachliteratur, 1983.
  8. ↑ Diana Raič: The killing of children by their own parents: Socio Biographical, motivational and criminal aspects . Shaker Verlag , Aachen 1997, ISBN 978-3-8265-2707-4 (also: Bonn, Univ., Diss., 1995).
  9. ↑ Dr. Claudia Klier: crimes that shocked the world - the baby killer. youtube.de, 2011, accessed on December 16, 2011 : "There is no case in the world of a neonatalicide where the man has been convicted."
  10. ↑ FAZ: Less infanticide in Germany ( Memento from February 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ Study: More child killings in the east. Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 17, 2010, accessed on December 16, 2011 : "An analysis of the cases over the past ten years shows that in eastern Germany children are killed three to four times as often by their parents as in the west."
  12. ↑ FAZ: More and more parents are unable to raise their children
  13. ↑ Everything used to be worse: murders of children . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 2017, ISSN  0038-7452 , p. 64 .
  14. ↑ Imtiaz Ahmad: Illegitimate newborns murdered and discarded. Deutsche Welle, April 22, 2014, accessed January 4, 2015 .
  15. ^ Tacitus : The Histories . William Heinemann, London 1931, pp. Volume II, 183.
  16. ^ Josephus : The Works of Flavius ​​Josephus, "Against Apion" . Harvard University Press , Cambridge 1976, pp. II.25, p. 597.
  17. ↑ Hannes Stein: Our angel saves us from child murder , Die Welt, February 22, 2013
  18. ↑ The Mystery of 97 Dead Roman Babies , YouTube video
  19. ↑ Jennifer Viegas: Infanticide Common in Roman Empire. Discovery News, May 5, 2011, accessed December 22, 2013 .
  20. ↑ Killing babies. (No longer available online.) The Times Literary Supplement, July 30, 2010, archived from the original on December 24, 2013 ; accessed on December 22, 2013 .
  21. ↑ See Behnke Kinney 1993: 123-4.
  22. ↑ Michael Soyka: When women kill: psychiatric approach to the phenomenon of female violence , Schattauer Verlag, 2005, ISBN 978-3-7945-2346-7 p. 80
  23. ↑ Maren Lorenz: "Criminal Bodies - Troubled Minds. The normalization of the individual in forensic medicine and psychiatry of the Enlightenment. "Hamburger Edition, Hamburg, 1999 (also diss., University of Saarbrücken 1998) (esp. Pp. 134–188)
  24. ↑ Global Women's Issues and Knowledge 3. In: Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women. Routledge, 2000, p. 1139 , accessed December 17, 2011 (English).
  25. ↑ Female infanticide. BBC ethics, 2006, accessed December 17, 2011 .
  26. ↑ Section 217. In: lexetius.com. Thomas Fuchs, accessed on November 11, 2011 . , Overview ( synopsis ) of the 11 versions of § 217 of the Criminal Code for the German Reich of May 15, 1871 with effect from January 1, 1872 up to and including the abolition with Art. 1 No. 35, 9 of the Second Act of 26. January 1998 with effect from April 1, 1998.
  27. ↑ See judgment of the Reichsgericht of February 19, 1940 RGSt 74, 84 - bathtub case: RG, February 19, 1940 - 3 D 69/40 = RGSt 74, 84 ; Tenor: "Anyone who commits an act according to § 217 StGB. helps, can only be convicted of aiding and abetting murder or manslaughter. In his case, however, it must be checked whether the main offender acted with deliberation or not, although this distinction was made for the offense of § 217 StGB. itself is legally irrelevant. ” The consideration back then was what are now characteristics of murder .
  28. ↑ Justification: BGH 4 StR 352/08 - judgment of October 30, 2008 (LG Magdeburg)
  29. ↑ Section 79 of the Criminal Code. In: RIS. Federal Chancellery of Austria, January 1, 2016, accessed on September 2, 2018 .
  30. ↑ Criminal Code. Federal Chancellery, January 1, 2007, accessed on September 2, 2018 .