Acer | Gender Violence | A case study on female infanticide and foeticide in Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, India | |
Peace and conflict studies

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Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction 2 2.0 Theory 3 2.1 Galtung’s violence triangle and structural violence and cultural violence 3 2.2 Gender Theory 5 2.3 Human rights 7 2.4 Women’s rights 8 2.5 Consumerism 10 2.6 Conflict resolution conflict transformation 10 3.0 Female infanticide and foeticide—background and case study 11 4.0 Discussion 16 4.1 Galtung and the violence triangle 16 4.2 Cultural violence 17 4.3 Structural violence 17 4.3 Conflict resolution 20 4.4 Conflict transformation. 21 5.0 Conclusion 23 Bibliography 25 7.0 Appendix 28

1.0 Introduction

In 1991, UNICF reported that, due to foeticide, as many as 40 or 50 million girls are missing from the Indian population – a number which constitutes about five percent of the total population. The 'missing girls' is a huge problem in India today – some villages does not even have women at all. (Subhra Singh, The Times of India feb. 8th 2011, from the cencus in 2001)
Sex selection in India is at a growing rate, and according to the census held in 2001, the sex ratio (number of females per thousand males) shows that there are great varieties in the numbers – from the lowest, with 591 (Daman) to the highest, Pondicherry, which has 1,147 females per 1000 males. The average sex ratio for whole of India the same year was 927 to 1000 – and the numbers are still increasing. (Sabu George, 'Hidden Genocide', 2007).
These numbers, linked to the prevalence of female infanticide and foeticide in Indian states, is a clear indication of violence against women and children.

In this paper, we will focus on and explain the practices of female infanticide and foeticide in India, more precisely in area of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. Our motivation for choosing these issues/areas as topics for research and discussion is based on that we wanted to find out more about women's role in modern Indian society, and especially their role linked to female infanticide and foeticide, how the women's role have changed.

Our method of working and collecting information have been both secondary sources, as further utdypet in the bibliography, and also primary sources in the form of interviews that we have conducted with people and institutions we felt had relevance to our area of study and our research question(s). We will compare and explore both the government approach to this problem and an NGO approach and linking them together with both gender theory, human rights, and also the theories of conflict transformation and conflict resolution. We will present theories and concepts that relate to this subject before we will present our case study on female infanticide and foeticide in Pondicherry, and discussion before we will reach our conclusion.

The questions, or what we will examine in detail in this paper will be the following:
How does the state and grass root organizations approach cultural and structural violence related to women’s rights with particular focus on sex selection in Tamil Nadu, India?
Is there a relation between the methods used to approach government and grass root organizations with conflict resolution and conflict transformation?

2.0 Theory

2.1 Galtung’s violence triangle and structural violence and cultural violence
In peace and conflict studies there is a clear distinction between two forms of peace; negative peace refers to the absence of war, whereas positive peace suggests that something is added to the recipe. Positive peace is the present of many desirable states, such as harmony, justice and equality. “Positive peace refers to a social condition in which exploitation is minimized or eliminated and in which there is neither overt violence nor the more subtle phenomenon of underlying structural violence.”(Barash, Webel, 2009:7).

Peace researcher Johan Galtung noted that direct and physical violence is more easily observed than the violence built into the structure of our societies (Barash, Webel 2002:7). Structural violence refers to the underlying violence in systems and institutions. This type of violence is one that cannot be seen because it is indirect (read: not physical) but it is present in most systems around the world in the sense that it hinders people from realizing their full potential. The consequences of structural violence deprives people of human rights, one of these is the equality between the sexes. We will investigate later in the paper what forms of structural violence that affects women in India and Pondicherry with relation to the government’s discourse and law systems.

To relate the three types of violence to each other Johan Galtung introduced the model of conflict peace and violence put into a triangle. Conflict was put into a triangle, where you have attitudes (A), behaviour (B) and contradiction (C) as the three vertices. It is a framework that could encompass both symmetric and asymmetric conflict. A symmetric conflict when the parts in the conflict has relatively equal resources and asymmetric conflict is when one of the parties is seen as having a lesser amount of resources. According to Galtung, all three aspects has to be present together in a conflict, and these are all constantly changing and influenced by each other (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall 2005). In the same way as with conflict, violence can be put into a triangle, now with direct violence, cultural violence, and structural violence at the vertices. The three variables might affect each other in any way, and the escalation of violence can go in any direction, cultural violence leading to structural violence, structural violence leading to direct violence etc. When the triangle is stood with cultural violence on top we can see that cultural violence is used to legitimize both structural and direct violence. A flow of violence from cultural via structural leading to direct can often be seen in a conflict. The different types of violence is remove by different actions, structural violence is ended by removing structural contradictions, cultural violence by changing attitudes and direct violence by changing behaviour (Galtung, 1996).

Cultural violence
The word culture comes from the Latin word Cultu’ra which means cultivation and formation. Culture is the opposite of the word nature as it is learned, created and communicated by humans. It consists of patterns that has deeper principals, and varies between individuals in detail: “The totality of socially transmitted behaviour patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought” (American Heritage Dictionary 2011).
Following up on this; cultural violence helps us understand the persistence and aspects of culture and representative subject of our reality which can be used to legitimise or substantiate direct and structural violence. It countenances direct and structural violence in two directions: one, altering the “moral colour” of an act so it appears “right” and the second way by making our reality “dense” so that neither part appears violent (J Galtung, 1971).
There exists a relationship between the cultural violence, direct and structural violence that is not unifacial, but as well as cultural acceptance can legitimize the continuous use of violence, it can also increase the acceptability of cultural violence that becomes accustomed and weary (Galtung, 1990).

Galtung gives examples of six different cultural domains that occur in cultural violence, respectively religion and ideology, language and art, empirical and formal science. (Galtung, 1990) An example of cultural violence as seen above is language: “[The] Word for male gender [is the same] as for the entire human species” (Galtung, 1990:299).
Religion is another example of cultural violence. And this is where Manu’s laws are relevant: “In childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, and when her lord is dead, to her sons; a woman must never be independent” (Women in world history, 2011).

2.2 Gender Theory
“One is not born a woman, one becomes one” Simone de Beauvoir said in her work The Second Sex in 1949. Gender theory argues that humans are divided into femininities and masculinities that are essentially constructed out of social and cultural conditions. And it is for these reasons that acting according to these stereotypes of how a man or a woman should become cultural practices (De Beauvoir 1949).
A common mistake is to think of sex and gender as the same thing, because by mixing these concepts makes gender something constant. Sex is a concept that’s referring to biological differences both fixed and unchangeable, whereas Gender as a concept refers to differences constructed through social, political, cultural and economic processes and structures (United Nations, 2005).
When categorizing women and men into dichotomies, first of all it disregards to a degree the similarities between the two. They have to take into consideration all the other factors that construct “types” of people such as categories of nation, cultural, religion and ethnicity. The categorization of other human beings according to stereotypes is a fundamental trait amongst humans. We take note of some of their capacity by only looking at certain qualities; we ignore others where the features may be different. In this way we reduce the complexity of the flow of information and thereby create a more viable basis for our assumptions and actions (Womenwatch, 2005).
In the Indian society you will find expectations and assumptions for women that are principals that come from a clear venture from a suppressive past. India is a very diverse country culture-wise, and it is therefore difficult to generalize in relation to women’s situation in the country. However there are some traditional values within the 80.5 % of the population who practice Hinduism that we can draw from (CIA Factbook, 2001).

In the age of the Rig Veda, which lasted from 2500-1500 BC, traditions and women’s role were quite different from what it is today, on many levels – when it came to marriage, for example, there were no child marriage, no dowry, no approvals were needed from either parents or others in the family. The female deities were commonly worshipped. Quite opposite from what the norm is today, the groom actually often paid a bride-price if he was not very desirable. Widows were also culturally allowed to remarry. In addition, after being taken into her new home, the wife had total freedom; she was respected and had an authoritarian voice in the home. She also helped her husband perform religious rites and rituals; hence she had an important role in the ancient Indian family and community. Sons, as they still are today, were also back then preferred to have rather than daughters, as they were the ones who would perform the last rites and continue the family line (Nayyar, 2000).

Manu’s law is one of India’s earliest legal codes. It was compiled in 200-400 A.D. and was the work of enforcement by the Brahmin elite to restrict women’s legal independence.
According to the Manu’s law woman must first obey her father, then her husband, and then her son; subjection to men is the common pattern as she goes through life. Since it is the man in the household who is in control of the family’s assets, it is him who pays or receives the dowry before the time of his child’s marriage. Although older women may be very influential behind the scenes, and help to imprint the invisible cultural rules, they wield little legal authority towards their husbands and male relatives concerning property and marriage matters:
“A wife, a son, and a slave, these three are declared to have no property. The wealth which they earn is acquired for him to whom they belong” (Womenworldhistory, 2005).
Over the years, along with changing land rights, changes in the agriculture and development in general, the situation has developed significantly to the worse for women in India. Girls and women have gradually been seen as practically useless liabilities, contrary to the historical view of the woman as a caretaker and a life-giving contributor to society (Sanjeev Nayyar, 2000).

2.3 Human rights

The concept of human rights has come in common currency in the twentieth century, however the idea is much older. In all the great religions, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam there exists moral codes related to human dignity under a “Divine law”. During the enlightenment period the idea of an authority that transcended governments was further embellished by philosophers who meant that human rights exists in a ‘natural’ law and was something inherent in peoples (Barash 2000).

Before the emergence of international treaties regarding the issues of human rights, state sovereignty were placed above human rights, and before governments would not express concern over how other governments treated their citizens in order to not breach their sovereignties (Barash, 2000).
The first treaty that transcended the notion of state supremacy was the international humanitarian law concerning wounded soldiers, arose from the Geneva Convention of 1864 (Red Cross, 2011). This treaty marked a shift in human rights law-making.
However, it was not until the aftermath of World War II, that worldwide concerns for human rights were expressed (Barash, 2000). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted in 1948 by the 58 member states of the United Nations General Assembly. 48 member states voted in favor of the declaration, amongst those were India (United Nations, 1948).
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights comprised of 30 articles (appendix 4) that aspired to ensure the security and freedom of humans. The first article of these states that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” (United Nations General Assembly, Art.1.,1948). Other areas of focus concerned basic needs for survival, right to political participation, freedom of press, arbitrary incarceration, education amongst others (United Nations General Assembly, 1948).

Although the declaration is not legally binding, it is viewed as a moral obligation. In addition, it is widely accepted by governments worldwide and many national constitutions include it. It also works as a means for diplomacy, and thus it is even more respected in relation to the fact that governments benefit from the recognition of other states (Barash, 2000).
One of the fundamental flaws of the declaration was that several of the rights mentioned conflicts one another. An example of this is the woman’s right to get an abortion, conflicts with the fetus’s right to life (Barash, 2000). With regards to our case study on female feticide this presents yet another grey moral area; should it be illegal to abort a girl-child if the mother does not want any children at all?

2.4 Women’s rights

Today’s women rights movement started with the demand for suffrage in late 19th century western countries (Barash.,Webel, 2009). The real turning point towards equal rights between men and women came with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 which clearly states that human rights should apply to women; they should apply to all “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status” (UDHR 1948 Art.2). Although many governments adopted legislations that adhered to the 30 articles in the UDHR, women’s human rights, particularly within the private sphere, continued to be ignored in the latter part of the 20th century. This means that while these laws and regulations were imposed in the visible “public” space, what goes on within private homes were and are widely exempt from governments’ inquiry (Bunch et al. 2000).
In India several women’s rights group emerged in the 1970s as a response to the state’s failure highlighting issues concerning women’s security. The Committee on the Status of Women in India was founded and in 1974 it produced the report “Towards Equality” that criticized the government’s lack of effort in regard to Article 14 in the Constitution about equity between sexes (Calman J., 1992). As a result of the report the Parliament began to recognize women as assets in policy-making. Another result of the report was the increase in media attention on crimes against women, amongst these dowry-murders, which we will discuss extensively in this paper. In the following decades there was a steady increase in women-oriented non-governmental organizations and presses, mainly created by educated women from the middle- or upper-class (Subramaniam, 2004).
Nevertheless, it was first in the 1990s that India and the international community acknowledged the magnitude of human rights violations against women. The alarming need to address women’s rights in specific and separate agendas lead to the resolutions adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993 with the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (DEVAW). It is stated in the preamble that the declaration considers “historically unequal power relations between men and women” as the reason for violence against women, and further on defining this violence as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” (UN General Assembly, 1993). As a result, the Ministry of Law and Justice in India formed the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, a legislation aimed at protecting women’s rights in the private sphere. The question of how successful the government has been in implementing the laws drafted will be one of the focus points of this paper.

2.5 Consumerism
India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world today with an annual increase of 8,3 % of Gross National Product (GDP) in 2010. This is partly due to the economic liberalization reforms that started in early 1990s. Despite this growth, India also has one of the highest disparities between rich and poor; were the 10% with the highest income share 31,1% of the GDP and the 10% with the lowest income have only 3,6% (CIA World Factbook 2010).
With the augmentation of liberalist economy, one can see a relationship with an increasingly consumer-driven culture. As a result of the advertisements seen on television and in the rest of the media, the Indian society is becoming more materialistic. This has lead to an increase in the demands for dowry in the last decades. Dowry has become a way for families “to escape poverty, augment wealth or acquire the modern conveniences” such as cars, computers, television-sets and consumer-goods (Moore, 1996). We will venture into the depths of how dowry contributes to cultural violence regarding the degrading view of women later in our discussion part.

2.6 Conflict resolution conflict transformation
Conflict Resolution as a scientific field can be seen as a response to the appeasement-failure of International Relations (IR) preceding the 2nd World War, but also as a reaction to the new threat of a nuclear war (Wallensteen 2007). The field of International Relations is a branch of political science which focuses on diplomacy, relations between countries and their foreign affairs. Conflict resolution is a range of methods to resolve conflicts. In Conflict resolution there are five general approaches to conflict; Yielding, compromising, withdrawal, contending and problem solving. Yielding means one part in the conflict gives in completely, compromising means both parts give in partly, withdrawal means both parties move away from the conflict, contending means the effects of the conflict is minimized on the parties, and problem solving means finding a new solution where both parties come out as winners. It is the concern for self and other which distinguish what response one part will have to the conflict. Yielding is the least constructive response, because the concern for self is low and for the other part high, in opposition, problem solving is the most constructive, because concern for both self and other is high. Problem solving is a method moving towards the method of conflict transformation.

Conflict transformation can be seen as a branch of conflict resolution, for instance the work of John Burton is somewhat within the characterization of conflict transformation (Ramsbotham et al., 2005). However, we will in this paper see it as two separate approaches because of the difference in perception of conflict. Lederach, one of the founders of conflict transformation defined conflict as “normal and continuous dynamic within human relationships” (Lederach, 2003:7). Conflict transformation does not seek to eliminate the conflict because conflict is a natural part of life, this as a contradiction to the description of conflict offered by Kenneth Boulding; “Each particular conflict, however, can be thought of as having a life cycle: it is conceived and borne, it flourishes for a while, and the certain processes that are probably inherit in its own dynamic system eventually bring it to an end” (Boulding, 1962: 307).

The difference between conflict resolution and conflict transformation as defined by Lederach and Boulding lies mainly in the understanding of the conflict itself. Conflict transformation sees conflict as a necessity in a social society and views conflict as a potential for improvement, whereas conflict resolution sees conflict as something temporary, and therefore should be resolved. (Ramsbotham et al. 2005). Where there in conflict resolution is seen as a problem that can be solved if the right approach is used, conflict transformation sees conflict as potential for transformation (Wallensteen 2007; Lederach 2003).

3.0 Female infanticide and foeticide—background and case study
In this paper we have chosen to focus on the prevalence of female infanticide and foeticide in the Tamil Nadu region, and particularly inside the union territory of Pondicherry. Pondicherry consists of four enclaves, Karaikal, Mahe, Pondicherry and Yanam, and together they cover an area of 492 square kilometers. Pondicherry consists of 94 villages and has 973,829 inhabitants according to the 2001 census (Gopalan, 2005).

The practice of female infanticide in India was first documented in 1870 by the British government under their colonial rule, which lasted from 1858 to 1918. Their documentations were for the most part regarding the northern regions of India – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajastan, and Punjab. In Tamil Nadu, the practice of female infanticide was not known to exist until after independence, with the exception being amongst one tribe in the Nilgiri district, the Thodas (Chunkath et al, 1999).
Female infanticide refers to the practice of committing homicide against infant girls (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2011). Foeticide, or abortion, is used as another means for sex selection, by using ultra-sound machines to find the gender of the unborn baby. Especially in urban areas, the rate of foeticide is increasing, mostly due to the greater access to devices used for determining the sex of the baby (Saravanan, 2000).
The government of India has amended several laws to suppress these actions/practices. The prohibitions of foeticide or pre-natal sex selection are made by two acts: the Medical Termination of Pregnancy-act (MTP-act), which provides the possibilty for an abortion to be excecuted in a government hospital by a registered medical practitioner only if:
”...continuance of the pregnancy, [which at the time must not exceed twelve weeks and]; involves a risk to the life of the woman or a grave injury to her physical or mental health; or, there is a substantial risk that the child, when born, would suffer such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.” (Supra, note 1, § 3(2)(ii).).

The MTP-act is under the Indian Penal Code, which states that «causing an abortion, even if caused by the pregnant woman herself, is a criminal offense, unless it is done to save the life of the woman. The offense is punishable by imprisonment for a period of three years, by fine, or by both.»
(The Indian Penal Code, Act No. 45 of 1860, § 312.)
The Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques-act (PNDT-act) is another act that came later, in 1994 and that was later amended in 2002, which specifically prohibits abortion when the abortion is done for the purpose of sex selection. The objectives of the act are stated in the preamble:
”…to provide for the prohibition of sex selection, before or after conception, and for regulation of pre-natal diagnostic techniques for the purposes of detecting genetic abnormalities or metabolic disorders or chromosomal abnormalities or certain congenital malformations or sex-linked disorders and for the prevention of their misuse for sex determination leading to female foeticide and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto” (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, No. 57 of 1994).

The law of India does not have a different legislation dealing with infanticide. The crime goes under the Indian Penal Code, as homicide. Due to the variety of the execution of female infanticide, the practitioner can be prosecuted with different charges. A person who tries to commit female infanticide through abandonment, will be charged under section 317 of the Indian penal code, while a person committing to infanticide through drowning the child, will be charged with murder, under section 300. Causing death by negligence comes under section 120[304A in the Indian penal code (Indian Penal Code, chapter 16 - on offences affecting the human body).
For this case study, we have conducted interviews with three government officials in three different departments – at the Social Welfare Department, at the Women and Child Department, with the chairman of the Human Rights Committee in Pondicherry, and also we interviewed two law students at Pondicherry court.

In addition, we also interviewed representatives for two Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO). The first one was a secular, non-profit and non-political organization called Volonteriat, which is located in Pondicherry. It was created in 1962 by Madeleine Herman. Their will, or objective, is to “serve FIRST the poorest of the poor”, hereby meaning children, people that suffer from leprosy, people that are unemployed, single parents and so forth (Volontariat website, 2009). Examples of activities they do are teaching and education of both children and adults, counseling for adolescents and children facing problems, helping old, lonely people who have no resources, teaching handicrafts, agriculture and raising cattle, to mention some (Volontariat website, 2009).
One of their focus areas is to help raise awareness about women’s rights, education possibilities, dowry and the like. They also provide tools for improving women’s self empowerment and status in society. The work of the organization is mainly conducted in the field, working from the bottom up to improve the situation of the affected women. The projects can be divided in two directions, the first being individual intervention where juridical help and counseling are offered to families who are dealing with problems related to dowry (Appendix 1:6).
The second direction is broader social intervention, where they for instance establish nurseries to improve childcare. To improve the women’s access to education, Volontariat offers evening classes, help with homework and also economical support for higher education (Appendix 1:6).
In response to our question about what she thought the underlying causes for these problems might be, Shanti, our interviewee at the Volontariat, stated that girl babies are seen as a burden and that the reason they are viewed as a burden is solely because of dowry. Shanti claims that today, dowry can consist of up to 8 years worth of salaries, and that this has increased compared to what it was like before. We also asked her about how common these practices are in and around the city of Pondicherry, whereas she said she knows that both foeticide and infanticide occur in these areas (Appendix 1:6).

The other NGO we talked to was the Idhaya Shelter Home, which is also stationed in Pondicherry. The home is open for women who are struggling and suffering with various problems, some of them being depression, sexual harassment, poor literacy, emotional disturbances, cases of divorce and the like. It was started in 1997, and there are currently 105 women being helped and cared for at the shelter (Idhaya Shelter Home, 2010).
Both NGO’s stated that female infanticide and foeticide exist in the villages surrounding Pondicherry city but not in the city itself because of the augmentation of funding directed towards education (Appendix 1:5, 1:6).

In our interview with the Human Rights Committee the chairman declared that “Gender issues are not Human rights” (Appendix 1:4) and that female infanticide and foeticide does not exist in the state of Pondicherry (Appendix 1:4).

An unmarried Indian, middle class couple we talked to state that female infanticide and foeticide is being practiced everywhere and mostly by the middle class in urban areas, including Pondicherry. They further tell us that they personally know a couple who committed female foeticide.
According to this couple, since foeticide is “less horrible”, infanticide is the second choice to families if they did not have the chance to have an abortion in the first place (Appendix 1:7).

The Indian couple agrees with Shanti from the Volontariat, on that the underlying reasons for the practice of female infanticide and foeticide are dowry and also the view on women and girls as a burden. They also say that the complete view of women in India makes these crimes acceptable – like in the case with their friend who committed female foeticide, their argument for doing so was merely that they wanted a son to carry on their family business, something they felt a daughter would not be able to do (Appendix 1:7).

We also conducted interviews with two law students, and according to them, Pondicherry court has not processed any cases of infanticide or foeticide related crimes in the last 20 years. The law student’s further claim that the occurrence rate of infanticide in rural areas and villages are higher in contrast to what it is in urban areas; because of the villages own justice system, and the lack of education (Appendix 1:2).
The government has launched various initiatives to reduce the growing infanticide. One example of such initiative is the 'Cradle Babies' scheme that was launched by the government of Tamil Nadu in 1992, where cradles are being placed on locations that are subject to be receiving girl babies that are unwanted and who would else be abandoned by their parents due to social circumstances, (locations) like hospitals, health centers, orphanages, children homes and so forth. These children are then, after being put in the cradles, brought to reception centers for rehabilitation. For many, the next step will be adoption agencies (Dr. J. Jayalalitha 2011).The scheme was launched as a response to reports that female infanticide was occurring in parts of the state (Asha Krishnakumar, 2005).

Another scheme initiated by the government is the “Girl Child Protection Scheme”, a scheme that was first launched by the government of Tamil Nadu in 1992 and later emulated by the Prime Minister in 1997 for the whole nation. In the rural areas, the government encourages families to keep their baby girls by handing out money to the panchayats, the local village council. The panchayats will then distribute the money to the different families that are eligible. The reason for this is based on reports from the scheme, when it was merely working in Tamil Nadu, of corruption and bribes being paid to be able to take advantage of the scheme. “Several parents from different districts who have taken advantage of the scheme have told me that the bribes paid amounted to nearly 50 percent of the total amount of incentive money itself” (Sabu George, 2003).
Applications for this scheme in Pondicherry are made to the Women and Child Department, in which they will determine the families eligibility based on the government’s conditions – amongst others, the family must have 1 or a maximum of 2 girls (Women Development and Child Welfare Department website, 2011). If these conditions are met, the girl(s) in question will, during her 8th school year, receive 10 000 INR from the department (government). This money will be put on hold in a bank account that will be opened on the girl's 18th birthday. After this, the girl is free to spend the money however she wishes, although, from the government’s side, this money is thought to be used for education. (Women Development and Child Welfare Department website, 2011).

The government officials we spoke to stated that partly thanks to these schemes, female infanticide and foeticide is no longer a problem.
Unfortunately the consequences of these two schemes we have presented does not always reach out to all persons concerned, hence the results are often not as good as the intentions, which is a problem that will be discussed later in this paper.

4.0 Discussion
4.1 Galtung and the violence triangle
According to Leaderach conflict is something that is constant, but can transform into a violent conflict. I think it is certain to say that the condition around woman’s situation in Pondicherry has become a violent conflict according to this statement. But how does it fit into Galtung’s theory about conflict as a triangle with all vertices present.
Why infanticide and foeticide is a conflict. According to Galtung’s triangle, you need hostile or violent behavior, a contradiction and a negative attitude. We can find all these aspects in the situation around infanticide and foeticide. The behavior is that human beings are killing baby girls and committing foeticide, this is both a violent and hostile behavior. Contradiction, the human species are the only animal that is able to use logic and reason and moral ethics, but it is not natural to kill your own baby, it’s against nature, we need women to reproduce and now it has gone so far that it is a demand for women. Attitude, both men and women look down on women as a gender. This is negative and degrading attitudes towards women as group.

4.2 Cultural violence
First and foremost, it is at the family-level that women are “taught” what roles they should conform to, as seen in the interview with Shanti. It is not merely men who enforce stereotypes on females; women are also involved in propagating these views. Due to generations of oppression, mothers teach daughters how to act, not necessarily because they believe it is the right thing to do, but also because it prevents daughters from further physical violence.
As mentioned in the background, dowry was and still is the only property daughters inherit from the family, the dowry thus becomes a sort of pre-mortem inheritance for the women because only men were and are entitled to inherit all of the family assets or businesses. It is considered a custom for a bride to bring belongings from home while entering the home of the husband. Dowry is a gesture that makes sure that women entering the husband’s home get a share of the in-laws property. If she goes to her martial home without property of her own, her reliance on her husband and in-laws increases. Consequently, all the household requirements and garments parents provide their daughters with; help the daughters feel that they have something to call their own in their new establishment.
Shanti stated that because of the of the growing consumer-culture, dowry has now increased in such great measures that it has now become custom to pay up to eight years of their income to dowry. As a consequence of this, families are at a risk of bankruptcy if they send their girls of to be married. Certain expectations are demanded of the girls when they are wed away such as taking care of the household, looking after the elderly and small children, and subordinate to their husbands.

4.3 Structural violence
There are obvious contradictions revealed in the case study. Government officials deny the existence of female infanticide and foeticide in Pondicherry, while other sources point out that these crimes do occur. We will argue for the government’s actions, or non-actions, being structural violence.
The structural violence has been legitimized by the cultural violence and we can use Galtung’s triangle to illustrate the conflict. We have the government’s actions on top, schemes that distribute money to daughters for example. The actions legitimize Dowry, since there is not a greater need for a girl to have money, than a boy – if it weren’t for Dowry. Therefore we can see the structural violence on top that legitimizes the cultural violence at the bottom.

The government implements structural violence by not recognizing the practice of female infanticide and foeticide in the legislation. The violence is indirect and built into the judicial structures, since there is no framework law for female infanticide and foeticide. Infanticide, in particular, cannot accurately be documented since the crimes fall under various legislations due to the methods of murder. Comparable with Dowry Death, in section 149[304B in the Indian Penal Code, Dowry Death is still a murder, but has been emphasized in the legislation. We can view it as the recognition of a crime in a context. The specified legislation somehow makes the statement that this particular crime is occurring, or has occurred, but is not accepted.
The government’s ignorance of the practice of female infanticide and foeticide also violates the constitution of India, where it in part III, Fundamental rights, suggests the following:

“Right to Equality 14. The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India. (1) The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them. (2) No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction or condition with regard to— (3) Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any special provision for women and children” (Constitution of India, 1949).

Even though the government supposes that the practice of female infanticide and foeticide is not occurring, according to our interviews with government officials, there is a risk of female infanticide and foeticide being practiced in the villages outside Puducherry. Then this practice is intentionally ignored, since there is a risk of the phenomenon to exist. It is being deliberately ignored because there is no department in the government of Puducherry that are neither monitoring the practice, nor handling and preventing the practice. These are clear example of structural violence where the government evidently denies people human rights. The government officials that are denying the practice of female infanticide and foeticide are an important part of the structure. They contribute to violence without the intention to do so, only by working in the structure.
Structural violence usually denies people important rights, a denial we have seen in the government’s actions, or non-actions, to the practice of female infanticide and foeticide. By ignoring the occurrence of the practice, the government consequently ignores the human rights. As mentioned in the theory, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. As a result of committing to the practice of female infanticide and foeticide, then it violates the declaration. Therefore the government also violates these rights since they in reality accept the practice.

As mention in the theory part about women’s rights, human rights has not historically and in practice, applied and secured women. Therefore, the violations against the human rights, in these cases, do not only suggest they are violations of the human rights – but further a reason to stress women’s rights. The practice of female infanticide and foeticide is a clear example of how human rights do not apply to women.
As declared in the theory part about women’s rights, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, from 1993 is trying to pin point the violence that was earlier ignored, even though many of the articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by India. The violence they were trying to pin-point is within the private sphere, where there is a moral debate about intervening in the private sphere, and therefore limiting the human freedom, contra securing all human rights. In the sense that government intentionally ignores the cases if female infanticide and foeticide that have a risk to exist in the villages– stresses the upholding of the old ideas about human rights not applying to the private sphere. The panchayats are clearly a part of the structure.
In the case study, the law students stated that ninety percent of cases in the villages that should have been brought up to court are handled by the panchayats. This would be another part of the ignorance by the judicial structure, equals structural violence. Structurally, there can be “hidden number” of the practice, due to the judicial structure of India, where these crimes can be handled in the panchayats unnoticed, by people without education in law. Looking the judicial structure, with the panchayats in mind, the violence is not only built in to the very structure, but the structure also welcomes the violations of human rights.

4.3 Conflict resolution The difference between conflict resolution and conflict transformation lies mainly in the view of the conflict itself. Conflict transformation sees conflict as a necessity in a social society and view conflict as potential for improvements, whereas conflict resolution sees conflict as something you have to solve. They differ in their approach to conflict in the way that conflict resolution look at the problem in the conflict to try to resolute it, conflict transformation goes beyond the core of the conflict looking at the underlying issue to transform the conflict to something where violence does not occur (Lederach 2003) Conflict resolution is a set off approaches to resolve conflicts (Ramsbotham et al. 2005). What all the different theories have in common is the goal to eliminate a conflict. The Government, both the national and the government of Pondicherry, has enforced several legislations to eliminate the problem with infanticide and foeticide. On effort made by the government to stop infanticide, was the Cradle Baby scheme. The government put out cradles where parents could leave their baby-girl instead of killing it. The problem with infanticide was then solved, if we solely look at the problem as the committing of murder. People will no longer kill their baby, so there is an immediate solution to the problem with infanticide. Like in Conflict resolution the conflict around infanticide has ended, because people no longer kill their babies. However, this does not change the fact that a baby-girl is unwanted. It is a short term solution, the results are immediate but not long lasting. The same is with the “Girl Child Protection Scheme”, the government gives a family with a girl or a maximum of two girls money if the parents get sterilized. This will make it more “lucrative” to keep a girl. It makes people want to keep their daughters, so that the problem with uneven sex-ratio will go away. Nevertheless this is a short term solution, because it only underlies that a girl is are an economic burden. It actually might also contribute to legitimizing dowry, because the girl now gets money that in theory could be used for that purpose. Furthermore, the government has made some effort into fight the causes of foeticide and infanticide like the prohibition of dowry, which is seen as a reason for why people don’t want a girl(Appendix 1:6) Yet they are not looking at the real underlying issue. The result of this is that the law against dowry is not enforced. The dowry is still socially accepted and it is still practiced. Further when the government of the union territory today instead of admitting to the problem with infanticide and foetecide, states that the problem does not exist, and so there is no need to take measures. The method of making legislations has very immediate results. The laws make the cases of infanticide and foetecide go away, but is that because they no longer exist, or because people won’t speak out about it.

4.4 Conflict transformation.
The NGOs we talked to work from the grass root up, dealing with the conflict around infanticide and foetecide by using awareness and education. The problem with this approach is that the work is hard to document, both because the organization works on such a small scale, but also because a grass-root up approach does not focus on immediate results. In the work toward individual people, you can to some degree see the results, in that one woman decides to keep her girl-child and can give her a good upbringing. However these programs are still limited in their efficiency, because it only involves a limited number of women. The more general projects, like awareness programs which involve a greater number of women, comes in short when it comes to documentations. The results of the programs are very hard to document, and the results is a lack of evaluation of the programs asomething that becomes a problem when it comes to founding. Donors often want quick results to feel motivated to sponsor (Appendix 1:6) .
If we want to compare the work of volonteriat, with the approach of conflict transformation as presented by John Leaderach, there are several similarities.
First, the Volonteriat work on informing and educating the mothers, the becoming mothers and the girl children. They inform the women of their rights and their value as human beeings, to change their own attitudes towards themselves as women. “…transformation seeks to help those in conflict to understand the cultural patterns that contribute to conflict in their setting,..”(Lederach 2003:26). Volonteriat work on building the women’s self esteem and seeing their own value, so that they will see a new baby girl as a valuable contribution to the family rather than a burden. Changing the attitudes which leads to violence is conflict transformation. “Conflict transformation is to envision and respond to the ebb and flow of social conflict as life-giving opportunities for creating constructive change processes that reduce violence, increace justice in direct interaction and social structures, and respond to real-life problems in human relationship.”(Lederach p. 22, 2003) It means in the case of the conflict around infanticide and foetecide to transform the society into a society where infanticide and foetecide does not exist.
One of the main goals of conflict transformation is to help people achieve their full potential (Lederach 2003). This is corresponding to the goal of Volonteriat to give help for selfhelp. By giving the women the tools to help themselves, the women are able to get educated and take care of their family on their own. Volonteriat does this through the education help programs and the nurseries which relive women for having to bring their children to work.

The idea that education is the key to self empowerment is an approach much related to the women’s needs. Instead of focusing on the issue of infanticide and foetecide, the NGOs focus on the underlying reasons of why it occurs. They are focusing on the underlying problem, which are that a woman or girl is seen as less valuable than men. (Appendix 1:6) This is one goal of Conflict Transformation. “Understand and address root causes and social conditions that give rice to violent and other harmful expressions” (Lederach 2003: 27)

Volonteriats work is done mainly in the field. Working from the grass-root and up, the NGO start by working with the people affected by the conflict, the women and children. They work on the problems that are seen as most imitate by the people, their goal is to help where help is wanted. As in conflict resolution, the goal is to ”..understand the cultural patterns that contribute to conflict in their setting, and then to identify, promote, and build on the resources and mechanisms within that culture..”(Lederach 2003:26)
Volonteriat has programs aimed towards both the epicenter and the roots of the conflict with infanticide and foeticide. They work to prevent infanticide and foetecide, both direct and indirect, meaning they give counseling and support to women with girl-children and that are pregnant, and have awareness campaigns concerning women’s rights and status in society. This is how Lederach says conflict needs to be approached; “Transformation addresses both the episode and the epicenter of the conflict” (Lederach 2003:31).

We can see that in both the approach to conflict, and in their goals, Volonteriats work is related to Lederachs theory of Conflict transformation. This type of work results in a permanent change relationship (G.Tillet et al., 2009). Therefore conflict transformation is a more permanent resolution to the cultural conflict around gender discrimination (Tuft 2001). Conflict Tranformation does not seek to end the conflict; just transform it into something where violence does not occur (Lederach 2003). It is unrealistic to say that India is going to have a gender neutral society within the next ten years, but it is possible to change people’s attitudes toward girls and women, so that a girl-child is more desired. (Appendix 1:6).
The goals of volonteriat is the same as the goals for Conflict transformation as presented by John Lederach, Volonteriats work is aimed toward the goals of conflict transformation as presented by Jhon Lederach and the PRECEPTION of conflict as presented by Lederach is the same as how Volonteriat sees the conflict around infanticide and foetecide. Therefore there are appropriate to say that the work of the Volonteriat have a strong relation to the approach of Conflict transformation.

5.0 Conclusion
We have concluded that the practice of female infanticide and foeticide is not only a form of direct violence, but it is also cultural- and structural violence.
Cultural violence is visible through the attitudes related to the general view of women’s status in India, as a burden and liability. One of the reasons why these attitudes are maintained is because they are inherited, for example with the practice of Dowry.

The government and the NGO’s contribute to these forms of violence in different ways. The government contributes to increase structural violence by the denying that the practices of female infanticide and foeticide do exist, by both the actions they take, for example creating laws, and the necessary action they do not take, by for example not enforcing the same laws good enough.

The interviewed NGO’s contribution to cultural violence is of a more positive matter – as they are trying to raise awareness and educate about women’s status and attitudes. Their work is to transform in a way that they contribute to transform cultural violence by doing just this.

The government’s actions and non-actions are structural violence and also contribute to the structural violence by denying the practice of female infanticide and foeticide. But on the other hand, they admit that there is a risk of the occurrence of the practice, and therefore contributing to structural violence by not taking any actions to deal with the problem.

There is relationship between the methods the government uses to approach the problem and conflict resolution. The government tries to temporarily solve the problem by only decreasing the number of crimes being committed when they for example put up cradles in hospitals, where parents can leave their unwanted child instead of committed a murder.

The practice is understandable, if it is put into its context. The culture imposes the rejection of the female sex, and the reason for the practice is actually regarding the concern of a child. Because girls are discriminated against, and are not seen to have a prospect of a full filled life, it can be morally justified to end her life at an early stage.

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