now have an identity legally, known as family register. japan since feudal edo era japan the common slang for infanticide was mabiki (間引き), which means to pull plants from an overcrowded garden. a typical method in japan was smothering the baby's mouth and nose with wet paper. it became common as a method of population control. farmers would often kill their second or third sons. daughters were usually spared, as they could be married off, sold off as servants or prostitutes, or sent off to become geishas. mabiki persisted in the 19th century and early 20th century. to bear twins was perceived as barbarous and unlucky and efforts were made to hide or kill one or both twins. india main article: infanticide in india hindu woman carrying her child to be drowned in the river ganges at bengal (1852) hindoo mother sacrificing her infant (november 1853, x, p. 120) female infanticide of newborn girls was systematic in feudatory rajputs in south asia for illegitimate female children during the middle ages. according to firishta, as soon as the illegitimate female child was born she was held "in one hand, and a knife in the other, that any person who wanted a wife might take her now, otherwise she was immediately put to death". the practice of female infanticide was also common among the kutch, kehtri, nagar, bengal, miazed, kalowries and sindh communities. it was not uncommon that parents threw a child to the sharks in the ganges river as a sacrificial offering. the east india company administration were unable to outlaw the custom until the beginning of the 19th century.: 78 according to social activists, female infanticide has remained a problem in india into the 21st century, with both ngos and the government conducting awareness campaigns to combat it. africa in some african societies some neonates were killed because of beliefs in evil omens or because they were considered unlucky. twins were usually put to death in arebo; as well as by the nama people of south west africa; in the lake victoria nyanza region; by the tswana in portuguese east africa; in some parts of igboland, nigeria twins were sometimes abandoned in a forest at birth (as depicted in things fall apart), oftentimes one twin was killed or hidden by midwives of wealthier mothers; and by the !kung people of the kalahari desert.: 160–61 the kikuyu, kenya's most populous ethnic group, practiced ritual killing of twins. infanticide is rooted in the old traditions and beliefs prevailing all over the country. a survey conducted by disability rights international found that 45% of women interviewed by them in kenya were pressured to kill their children born with disabilities. the pressure is much higher in the rural areas, with every two mothers being forced out of three. australia literature suggests infanticide may have occurred reasonably commonly among indigenous australians, in all areas of australia prior to european settlement. infanticide may have continued to occur quite often up until the 1960s. an 1866 issue of the australian news for home readers informed readers that "the crime of infanticide is so prevalent amongst the natives that it is rare to see an infant". author susanna de vries in 2007 told a newspaper that her accounts of aboriginal violence, including infanticide, were censored by publishers in the 1980s and 1990s. she told reporters that the censorship "stemmed from guilt over the stolen children question". keith windschuttle weighed in on the conversation, saying this type of censorship started in the 1970s. in the same article louis nowra suggested that infanticide in customary aboriginal law may have been because it was difficult to keep an abundant number of aboriginal children alive; there were life-and-death decisions modern-day australians no longer have to face. south australia and victoria according to william d. rubinstein, "nineteenth-century european observers of aboriginal life in south australia and victoria reported that about 30% of aboriginal infants were killed at birth." james dawson wrote a passage about infanticide among indigenous people in the western district of victoria, which stated that "twins are as common among them as among europeans; but as food is occasionally very scarce, and a large family troublesome to move about, it is lawful and customary to destroy the weakest twin child, irrespective of sex. it is usual also to destroy those which are malformed." he also wrote "when a woman has children too rapidly for the convenience and necessities of the parents, she makes up her mind to let one be killed, and consults with her husband which it is to be. as the strength of a tribe depends more on males than females, the girls are generally sacrificed. the child is put to death and buried, or burned without ceremony; not, however, by its father or mother, but by relatives. no one wears mourning for it. sickly children are never killed on account of their bad health, and are allowed to die naturally." western australia in 1937, a christian reverend in the kimberley offered a "baby bonus" to aboriginal families as a deterrent against infanticide and to increase the birthrate of the local indigenous population. australian capital territory a canberran journalist in 1927 wrote of the "cheapness of life" to the aboriginal people local to the canberra area 100 years before. "if drought or bush fires had devastated the country and curtailed food supplies, babies got a short shift. ailing babies, too would not be kept", he wrote. new south wales a bishop wrote in 1928 that it was common for aboriginal australians to restrict the size of their tribal groups, including by infanticide, so that the food resources of the tribal area may be sufficient for them. northern territory annette hamilton, a professor of anthropology at macquarie university who carried out research in the aboriginal community of maningrida in arnhem land during the 1960s wrote that prior to that time part-european babies born to aboriginal mothers had not been allowed to live, and that 'mixed-unions are frowned on by men and women alike as a matter of principle'. inuit there is no agreement about the actual estimates of the frequency of newborn female infanticide in the inuit population. carmel schrire mentions diverse studies ranging from 15 to 50% to 80%. polar inuit (inughuit) killed the child by throwing him or her into the sea. there is even a legend in inuit mythology, "the unwanted child", where a mother throws her child into the fjord. the yukon and the mahlemuit tribes of alaska exposed the female newborns by first stuffing their mouths with grass before leaving them to die. in arctic canada the inuit exposed their babies on the ice and left them to die.: 354 female inuit infanticide disappeared in the 1930s and 1940s after contact with the western cultures from the south. canada the handbook of north american indians reports infanticide among the dene natives and those of the mackenzie mountains. native americans in the eastern shoshone there was a scarcity of indian women as a result of female infanticide. for the maidu native americans twins were so dangerous that they not only killed them, but the mother as well. in the region known today as southern texas, the mariame indians practiced infanticide of females on a large scale. wives had to be obtained from neighboring groups. mexico bernal díaz recounted that, after landing on the veracruz coast, they came across a temple dedicated to tezcatlipoca. "that day they had sacrificed two boys, cutting open their chests and offering their blood and hearts to that accursed idol". in the conquest of new spain díaz describes more child sacrifices in the towns before the spaniards reached the large aztec city tenochtitlan. south america although academic data of infanticides among the indigenous people in south america is not as abundant as that of north america, the estimates seem to be similar. brazil the tapirapé indigenous people of brazil allowed no more than three children per woman, and no more than two of the same sex. if the rule was broken infanticide was practiced. the bororo killed all the newborns that did not appear healthy enough. infanticide is also documented in the case of the korubo people in the amazon. the yanomami men killed children while raiding enemy villages. helena valero, a brazilian woman kidnapped by yanomami warriors in the 1930s, witnessed a karawetari raid on her tribe: they killed so many. i was weeping for fear and for pity but there was nothing i could do. they snatched the children from their mothers to kill them, while the others held the mothers tightly by the arms and wrists as they stood up in a line. all the women wept. ... the men began to kill the children; little ones, bigger ones, they killed many of them. peru, paraguay and bolivia while qhapaq hucha was practiced in the peruvian large cities, child sacrifice in the pre-columbian tribes of the region is less documented. however, even today studies on the aymara indians reveal high incidences of mortality among the newborn, especially female deaths, suggesting infanticide. the abipones, a small tribe of guaycuruan stock, of about 5,000 by the end of the 18th century in paraguay, practiced systematic infanticide; with never more than two children being reared in one family. the machigenga killed their disabled children. infanticide among the chaco in paraguay was estimated as high as 50% of all newborns in that tribe, who were usually buried. the infanticidal custom had such roots among the ayoreo in bolivia and paraguay that it persisted until the late 20th century. modern times infanticide has become less common in the western world. the frequency has been estimated to be 1 in approximately 3000 to 5000 children of all ages and 2.1 per 100,000 newborns per year. it is thought that infanticide today continues at a much higher rate in areas of extremely high poverty and overpopulation, such as parts of india. female infants, then and even now, are particularly vulnerable, a factor in sex-selective infanticide. recent estimates suggest that over 100 million girls and women are 'missing' in asia. benin in spite of the fact that it is illegal, in benin, west africa, parents secretly continue with infanticidal customs. mainland china there have been some accusations that infanticide occurs in mainland china due to the one-child policy. in the 1990s, a certain stretch of the yangtze river was known to be a common site of infanticide by drowning, until government projects made access to it more difficult. a study from 2012 suggests that over 40 million girls and women are missing in mainland china (klasen and wink 2002). india the practice has continued in some rural areas of india. infanticide is illegal in india but still has the highest infanticide rate in the world. according to a 2005 report by the united nations children's fund (unicef) up to 50 million girls and women are missing in india's population as a result of systematic sex discrimination and sex selective abortions. pakistan killings of newborn babies have been on the rise in pakistan, corresponding to an increase in poverty across the country. more than 1,000 infants, mostly girls, were killed or abandoned to die in pakistan in 2009 according to a pakistani charity organization. the edhi foundation found 1,210 dead babies in 2010. many more are abandoned and left at the doorsteps of mosques. as a result, edhi centers feature signs "do not murder, lay them here." though female infanticide is punishable by life in prison, such crimes are rarely prosecuted. oceania on november 28, 2008, the national, one of papua new guinea's two largest newspapers at the time, ran a story entitled "male babies killed to stop fights" which claimed that in agibu and amosa villages of gimi region of eastern highlands province of papua new guinea where tribal fighting in the region of gimi has been going on since 1986 (many of the clashes arising over claims of sorcery) women had agreed that if they stopped producing males, allowing only female babies to survive, their tribe's stock of boys would go down and there would be no men in the future to fight. they had supposedly agreed to have all newborn male babies killed. it is not known how many male babies were supposedly