About 239.000 young Indians die each year because they do not receive the same care as boys in a deeply sexist society, researchers said today.
"Gender discrimination not only prevents them from being born, but can also hasten the deaths of those born," said Christoph Gilmotto of Paris Descartes University, one of the authors of the study, published in the medical journal The Lancet.
In India, abortions of female fetuses are very common, but their number is lower than the number of deaths of girls under 5 years. The forms of neglect that little girls are victims of are many: malnutrition, lack of care and vaccination.
The result is rising girl death rates in India, with most being recorded in the poorest provinces with the highest birth rates and illiteracy, especially in the north of the country.
"Increased fertility is what contributes most to discrimination against girls after they are born, which leads us to conclude that most girls' deaths are due in part to unwanted pregnancies and subsequent negligence," the authors point out.
Comparing India with 46 other countries, the researchers concluded that the mortality rate among girls born between 2000 and 2005 was 18,5%.
"About 22% of hypersensitivity among girls is due to some form of sexism," the Austrian International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IISA) said in a statement.
"As per-region estimates of the excessive number of deaths among girls, any intervention to reduce discrimination in the distribution of food and medical care should be targeted primarily at areas (η) where poverty is endemic. "There is weak social development and patriarchal structures continue to dominate," said Indian IISA analyst Nadida Saikia.
