A newborn girl is currently in stable condition after having been discovered in a clay pot by authorities in India. The infant miraculously survived after having been buried alive for two whole days before her rescue, and authorities suspect the attempted infanticide was motivated by the baby being a girl.
According to the Population Research Institute, nearly 550,000 unborn girls are killed in India every year, findings that highlight the shocking extent in which girls in India are often targeted for abortion or extermination because they were born female.
The baby girl spent two days buried alive before a local man digging a grave for his own stillborn daughter accidentally dug up the clay pot that had been buried 3 feet underground. After discovering the newborn inside the pot, Hitesh Kumar Sirohi contacted authorities and fed the baby milk as he waited for them to arrive. Weighing 2.4 pounds when she arrived, a local hospital was able to stabilize the baby girl’s condition.
Named “Sita” by the hospital staff, the baby is still undergoing treatment as local police investigate gender discrimination as a possible motive. According to police chief Abhinandan Singh, there is a suspicion that Sita had been buried alive with her parents’ consent.
While sex-selection abortions and infanticide are illegal, India’s government officials estimated in 2018 that 63 million women are missing from the population due to sex-selective abortions, infanticide, and discriminatory violence.
Approximately 100 million women are missing worldwide due to sex-selective abortions. In the United States, these types of abortions are not illegal on a federal level. An analysis of census and birth records by Professor Jason Abrevaya of the University of Texas revealed that thousands of baby girls have been lost to the horrible practice of sex-selective abortions in America.
