Unter '''Kindstötung''' (lat. ''Infantizid'') versteht man die Elternteil. Die Tötung eines Neugeborenen wird als besonderer Fall der Kindstötung als Neonatizid bezeichnet.

==Definition==
Resnick (1970) definiert ''Neonatizid'' als die Tötung eines Kindes innerhalb von 24 Stunden nach seiner Geburt, ''Infantizid'' als die Tötung eines Kindes im Alter von einem Tag bis zu einem Jahr und ''Filizid'' als die Tötung von Kindern über dem Alter von einem Jahr. <ref>[http://132.199.136.23/download/lehre/ss06/32035/toetung.pdf Kerstin Eichenmüller, Bruno Heindl, Veronika Steinkohl: Tötungshandlungen im familiären Umfeld] </ref>

==Statistik und Motive==
Statistische Erhebungen gibt es nicht, jedoch wird angenommen, dass 2 bis 10 % der Fälle, die als plötzlicher Kindstod registriert werden einem gewalttätigem Motiv unterliegen und in Wirklichkeit Kindstötungen sind (Emery, 1985). Geschätzt wurden 0.6 pro 100 000 Kinder unter 15 Jahren in Schweden (Somander & Rammer, 1991) und bis zu 2.5 pro 100 000 Kinder unter 18 Jahren in den USA (Jason, Gilliland & Tyler, 1983).

Resnick untersuchte 1969 131 gerichtliche Fälle, in denen Mütter ihre Kinder getötet hatten anhand von Befragungen und teilte diese Fälle nach Motiven in fünf Kategorien ein (ausgenommen Neonatizid): 
* Altruistischer Filizid: Tötung in Kombination mit Suizid des Täters oder um das Kind vor realem oder imaginärem Leid zu bewahren (56 % der Fälle).
* Akut psychotischer Filizid: Tötung unter dem Einfluss von psychotischen Symptomen, Epilepsie oder Delir (24 %).
* Tötung eines ungewollten Kindes (11 %).
* Unbeabsichtigter Filizid oder „fatal battered child syndrome”: unbeabsichtigte Tötung eines Kindes aufgrund körperlicher Misshandlung (7 %).
* Rache am Ehepartner: Tötung des gemeinsamen Kindes, um dem Ehepartner Leid zuzufügen (2 %)

Später definierte Wilczynski (1997), folgende Motive unabhängig vom Geschlecht der Täter:
* „retaliating killings”: Tötung des gemeinsamen Kindes, um sich am (Ex-) Partner zu rächen,
* Eifersucht auf oder Ablehnung durch das Opfer, wobei meist der Vater der Täter ist,
* ungewolltes Kind als häufigster Grund für Neonatizid,
* übermäßige körperliche Bestrafung des Kindes bei Weinen oder Ungehorsam,
* Altruismus: „mercy killing” eines kranken oder geistig retardierten Kindes oder aufgrund einer Wochenbettdepression,
* psychotischer Elternteil,
* Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy,
* sexueller Missbrauch,
* Vernachlässigung ohne Absicht, das Kind zu verletzen oder zu töten sowie unbekannte Gründe.

Während bei früheren Untersuchungen hauptsächlich Motive der Mütter untersucht wurden, zeigte sich bei weiteren Untersuchungen, dass nach D’Orbans (1979) eine prozentuale Mehrzahl bei Männern zu der Gruppe „''Eltern, die ihre Kinder misshandeln''“ anteilig sind. Meist ging in diesen Fällen hierbei ein Stimulus des Kindes voraus (Weinen, Erbrechen, Weigerung zu essen etc.). Neonatizide werden dagegen von Vätern statistisch weniger begangen (Stanton & Simpson, 2002).

Die offizielle Kriminologischen Forschungsinstituts Niedersachsen unter Christian Pfeiffer weist nach Auswertungen zu rund 900 bis 1000 gerichtlich abgeschlossenen Fällen von Kindstötungen eine erhöhte Rate im Osten Deutschlands auf. Gründe liegen nach Pfeiffer in sozialer Isolation und Armut sowie Überforderung junger Mütter in ihrer Mutterrolle. <ref>[http://www.sueddeutsche.de/,tt5l1/deutschland/artikel/910/158484/ Sueddeutsche Zeitung: Studie: Mehr Kindstötungen im Osten] </ref> Die Langzeit-Untersuchung von Werner Johann Kleemann, Direktor des Instituts für Rechtsmedizin der Universität Leipzig kommt unterdessen zu dem Ergebnis, dass es keine Belege dafür gibt, dass Kinder im Osten Deutschlands häufiger an Misshandlung oder Vernachlässigung sterben als im Westen. <ref>[http://www.faz.net/s/Rub77CAECAE94D7431F9EACD163751D4CFD/Doc~EED5F80BE0E2A49E2B9B8457BB70FA14E~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html FAZ: Immer mehr Eltern sind erziehungsunfähig] </ref>

== Geschichtlich ==
In China wurden seit Jahrhunderten vor allem weibliche Nachkommen getötet, da diese im Vergleich zu Söhnen als weniger wertvoll betrachtet werden (Langer, 1974). Im mittelalterlichen jüdisch-christlichen Europa waren die Gründe für eine Kindstötung vorwiegend Unehelichkeit des Kindes und die Armut der Eltern (Moseley, 1986), aber auch Missbildungen des Kindes.

Seit der Gesellschaft die Tötung des Nachwuchses in Zeiten der klassischen Drama ''Medea'' und im 19. Jahrhundert im Märchen (''Hänsel und Gretel'') wird die Tat literarisch dargestellt.

Vor dem Mittelalter bis in die Neuzeit kam es nicht selten vor, dass ein Elternteil sein Kind umbrachte, da er es nicht ernähren konnte. Zu dieser Zeit wurden Kindstötungen wie der Mord an Erwachsenen bestraft.

Karls V. neue Vorschriften, die als übliche Strafe für Kindsmörder Pfählen, lebendiges Begraben oder Auseinanderreißen des Körpers mit glühenden Zangen vorsahen. Sie sollten als Abschreckung dienen. Das Motiv bzw. die Umstände wurden bei diesem Tatstrafrecht (nur die Tat zählt, nicht die Ursachen oder das Motiv) nicht beachtet, weshalb die Strafen auch keine abschreckende Wirkung hatten.

Im 17. und Wagners "Die Kindermörderin" (Goethes "Faust I".)

Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts wurden Todesstrafen für Kindsmorde seltener und 1813 wurde im Bayrischen Strafgesetzbuch eine Gefängnisstrafe dafür festgelegt.

== Rechtslage ==

450px|right|thumb| A [[fresco in Lüen, Switzerland depicting the Massacre of the Innocents.]]

'''Infanticide''' is the practice of someone intentionally causing the death of an criminal. Nonetheless, it still takes place &mdash; in the violent behavior, and in some poor countries as a form of  sex-selective infanticide.

In the United Kingdom, the Infanticide Act defines "infanticide" as a specific crime that can only be committed by the mother during the first twelve months of her baby's life. The broader notion of infanticide, as described below, is the subject matter of this article.

==Infanticide throughout history and pre-history==

The practice of infanticide has taken many forms. Child sacrifice to supernatural figures or forces, such as the one practiced in ancient Carthage, may be only the most notorious example in the ancient world. Regardless of the reasons, throughout history infanticide has been common. Anthropologist Laila Williamson noted:

<blockquote>Infanticide has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunter gatherers to high civilizations, including our own ancestors. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule.<ref name="InfAnAn">{{Citation
  | last = Williamson
  | first = Laila
  | author-link = 
  | contribution = Infanticide: an anthropological analysis
  | editor-last = Kohl
  | editor-first = Marvin
  | title = Infanticide and the Value of Life
  | volume = 
  | pages = 61–75.
  | publisher = Prometheus Books
  | place = NY
  | year = 1978}}</ref><!--p. 61--></blockquote>

A frequent method of infanticide in ancient Europe and Asia was simply to abandon the infant, leaving it to die by Diamond, Jared (2005). ''Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed''. ISBN 0-14-303655-6.</ref> while in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and in the Inca Empire it was carried out by sacrifice (see below). 

===Paleolithic and Neolithic===

Decapitated skeletons of prehistoric times.<ref>{{Citation
  | last = Birdsell
  | first = Joseph, B.
  | author-link = 
  | contribution = Some predictions for the Pleistocene based on equilibrium systems among recent hunter gatherers
  | editor-last = Lee
  | editor-first = Richard & Irven DeVore
  | title = Man the Hunter
  | volume = 
  | pages = 239.
  | publisher =Aldine Publishing Co. 
  | place = 
  | year = 1986}}</ref> Williamson estimated a lower rate ranging from 15-20%.<ref name="InfAnAn"/><!--p. 66--> Both believe that high rates of infanticide persisted until the development of agriculture.<ref name="Hardness" /><!-- p. 19 --> Comparative anthropologists have calculated that 50% of female newborn babies were killed by their parents in the Paleolithic.<ref></ref>

===In ancient history===
Child sacrifice, the ritualistic killing of children in order to please supernatural beings, was far more common in ancient history than in present times.
====In the New World====

 

Archaeologists have uncovered physical evidence of child sacrifice at several locations.<ref name="Hardness"/><!-- pp. 16-22 --> Some of the best attested examples are the diverse rites which were part of the religious practices in Mesoamerica and the Inca Empire.<ref> {{cite journal  | last = Reinhard  | first = Johan  | authorlink =Johan Reinhard|coauthors = Maria Stenzel
  | title = A 6,700 metros niños incas sacrificados quedaron congelados en el tiempo  | journal = National Geographic  | pages = 36–55  |date=November 1999}} </ref><ref>[http://www.exn.ca/mummies/story.asp?id=1999041452 Discovery Channel: The mystery of Inca child sacrifice]</ref><ref>{{cite book
  | last = de Sahagún  | first = Bernardino | authorlink = Bernardino de Sahagún  | title = ''Florentine Codex: History of the Things of New Spain''| publisher = University of Utah Press| date = 1950-1982  | location = Utah  | pages =  | url =  | doi =  | id =}}</ref>

====In the Old World====
Three thousand bones of young children, with evidence of sacrificial rituals, have been found in Jupiter and Juno. Many remains of children have been found in Gezer excavations with signs of sacrifice. Child skeletons with the marks of sacrifice have been found also in Egypt dating 950-720 BCE. In Carthage "[child] sacrifice in the ancient world reached its infamous zenith."<ref name="Hardness" /><!-- p. 324 --> Besides the Carthaginians, other Phoenicians, and the Canaanites, Moabites and Sepharvites offered their first-born as a sacrifice to their gods.

=====Carthage =====
CE) mentions the practice, as do Baal Hamon, a bronze statue.<ref></ref><ref></ref>

=====Greece and Rome=====
thumb|220px|[[Medea killing her sons,  by Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix (1862).]]
The historical Greeks considered barbarous the practice of adult and child sacrifice.<ref></ref> However, exposure of newborns was widely practiced in ancient Greece and ancient Rome. Philo was the first philosopher to speak out against it.<ref></ref> A letter from a Roman citizen to his wife, dating from 1 BCE, demonstrates the casual nature with which infanticide was often viewed:
:"Know that I am still in Alexandria. [...] I ask and beg you to take good care of our baby son, and as soon as I received payment I shall send it up to you. If you are delivered [before I come home], if it is a boy, keep it, if a girl, discard it."<ref>{{Citation
  | last = 
  | first = 
  | author-link = 
  | contribution = Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 744
  | editor-last = Naphtali
  | editor-first = Lewis
  | title = Life in Egypt Under Roman Rule 
  | volume = 
  | pages = 54.
  | publisher = Oxford University Press
  | place = Oxford
  | year = 1985}}</ref>

In some periods of CE, but offenders were rarely if ever prosecuted.<ref>{{Citation
  | last = Radville
  | first = Samuel X.
  | author-link = 
  | contribution = A history of child abuse and infanticide
  | editor-last = Steinmetz
  | editor-first = Suzanne K. and Murray A. Strauss
  | title = Violence in the Family
  | volume = 
  | pages = 173–179.
  | publisher = Dodd, Mead & Co.
  | place = NY
  | year = 1974}}</ref>

=====Judaism=====
Although there are many instances in the Jeremiah 7:31-32 & 19:5 & 32:35; Judges 11:31), Judaism prohibits infanticide. Roman historians wrote about the ideas and customs of other peoples, which often diverged from their own. Tacitus recorded that the Jews "regard it as a crime to kill any late-born children."<ref name="Histories"></ref> Josephus, whose works give an important insight into first-century Judaism, wrote that God "forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward."<ref></ref>

=====Pagan European tribes=====
In his book ''Germania'', Tacitus wrote that the ancient Germanic tribes enforced a similar prohibition. He found such mores remarkable and commented: ''"[The Germani] hold it shameful to kill any unwanted child."'' Modern scholarship differs. John Boswell believed that in ancient Germanic tribes unwanted children were exposed, usually in the forest.<ref name="KofS"></ref><!-- p. 218 --> "It was the custom of the [Teutonic] pagans, that if they wanted to kill a son or daughter, they would be killed before they had been given any food."<ref name="KofS"/><!-- p. 211 --> 

In his highly influential ''Pre-historic Times'', John Lubbock described burnt bones indicating the practice of child sacrifice in pagan Britain.<ref name="Pre-historic Times"></ref>

===Christianity===
Christianity rejected infanticide. The ''Teachings of the Apostles'' or ''Didache'' said ''"You shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born."''<ref>{{Citation
  | last = 
  | first = 
  | author-link = 
  | contribution = Didache
  | editor-last = Robinson
  | editor-first = J. Armitage (translator)
  | title = Barnabas, Hermar and the Didache
  | volume = D.ii.2c
  | pages = 112.
  | publisher = The MacMillan Co.
  | place = NY
  | year = 1920}}</ref> The ''Athenagoras, CE CE CE the Third Council of Toledo took measures against the Spanish custom of killing their own children.<ref>{{Citation
  | last = Radbill
  | first = Samuel X.
  | author-link = 
  | contribution = A history of child abuse and infanticide
  | editor-last = Steinmetz
  | editor-first = Suzanne K. & Murray A. Straus
  | title = Violence in the Family
  | volume = 
  | pages = 173–179.
  | publisher = Dodd, Mead & Co.
  | place = NY
  | year = 1974}}</ref>

====Middle Ages====

Whereas theologians and clerics preached sparing their lives, newborn abandonment continued as registered in both the literature record and in legal documents.<ref name="Ex&Ob"/><!-- p. 16 --> According to William L. Langer, exposure in the Middle Ages "was practiced on gigantic scale with absolute impunity, noticed by writers with most frigid indifference".<ref name="InfHisSu"> </ref><!--p. 355-356--> At the end of the 12th century, notes Richard Trexler, Roman women threw their newborns into the Tiber river even in day light.<ref></ref> 

Child sacrifice was practiced by the Irish. ''"They would kill their piteous wretched offspring with much wailing and peril, to pour their blood around Crom Cruaich"'', a deity of pre-Christian Ireland.<ref></ref>

Unlike other European regions, in the Middle Ages the German mother had the right to expose the newborn.<ref></ref> In Gotland, Sweden, children were also sacrificed.<ref></ref>

===Russia===

In Russia, peasants sacrificed their sons and daughters to the pagan god Perun. Although Church law forbid infanticide, it used to be practiced. Some rural people threw children to the swine. In Medieval Russia secular laws did not deal with what, for the church, was a crime.<ref name=""></ref> The Svans killed the newborn females by filling their mouths with hot ashes.<ref name="StAnHist"/> <!--p. 106-->

In  Kamchatka, babies were killed and thrown to the dogs.<ref name="StAnHist"/><!--p. 105--> American explorer George Kennan noted that among the Koryaks, a Mongoloid people of north-eastern Siberia, infanticide was still common in the 19th century. One of the twins was always sacrificed.<ref></ref>

===China===

Manzi.<ref></ref> China's society promoted Fukien a method of killing the baby was to put her into a bucket of cold water, which was called "baby water".<ref></ref>

===Japan===

Since feudal Japan the common slang for infanticide was ''"mabiki"'' which means to pull plants from an overcrowded garden. It has been estimated that 40% of newborn babies were killed in Kyushu.<ref></ref> A typical method in Japan was smothering through wet paper on the baby's mouth and nose.<ref></ref> Mabiki persisted in the 19th and early 20th centuries.<ref></ref>

===India and Pakistan===

Nagar, Gujarat, Miazed, Kalowries in India inhabitants, and also among the Sind in Pakistan.<ref></ref>

It was not uncommon that parents threw a child to the sharks in the British colonists were unable to outlaw the custom until the beginnings of the 19th century.<ref name="HumSac"/><!--p. 78-->

===Arabia ===
Some authors believe that there is little evidence that infanticide was prevalent in Tamim tribe, who practiced it during severe famine.<ref></ref> Others state that "female infanticide was common all over Arabia during this period of time" (pre-Islamic Arabia), especially by burying alive a female newborn.<ref name="Hardness" /><!-- p. 59--><ref></ref>

=== Islam ===
Infanticide is explicitly prohibited by the Qur'an.<ref name="Oxford"></ref> ''"And do not kill your children for fear of poverty; We give them sustenance and yourselves too; surely to kill them is a great wrong."'' <ref>Qur'an, XVII:31. Other passages condemning infanticide in the Qur'an appear in LXXXI:8-9, XVI:60-62, XVII:42 and XLII:48.</ref>

==Tribes==
Infanticide in Eastern civilizations.<ref name="The AbVic"/><!--p. 51-->

===Africa===

In Lake Victoria Nyanza region; by the !Kung ritual killing of twins.<ref>{{Citation
  | last = LeVine
  | first = Sarah and Robert LeVine
  | author-link = 
  | contribution = Child abuse and neglect in Sub-Saharan Africa
  | editor-last = Korbin
  | editor-first = Jill
  | title = Child Abuse and Neglect
  | volume = 
  | pages = 39.
  | publisher = University of California Press
  | place = Berkeley
  | year = 1981}}</ref> Lucien Lévy-Brühl noted that, because of fear of a drought, if a baby was born feet first in British East Africa, she or he was smothered.<ref></ref> The Tswana people did the same since they feared the newborn would bring ill fortune to the parents.<ref></ref> Similarly, William Sumner noted that the Vadshagga killed children whose upper incisors came first.<ref></ref> If a mother died in childbirth among the Ibo people of Nigeria, the newborn was buried alive. It suffered a similar fate if the father died.<ref></ref>

In ''The Child in Primitive Society'', Nathan Miller wrote in the 1920s that among the Kuni tribe every mother had killed at least one of her children.<ref></ref> Child sacrifice was practiced as late as 1929 in Zimbabwe, where a daughter of the tribal chief used to be sacrificed as a petition of rain.<ref name="HumSac"></ref><!--p. 143-->

===Oceania===
Infanticide among the autochthone people in the Oceania islands is widespread.
In some areas of the Fiji islands up to 50% of newborn infants were killed.<ref name="StAnHist"></ref><!--p. 91-92--> In the 19th century Ugi, in the Solomon islands almost 75% of the indigenous children had been brought from adjoining tribes due to the high incidence rate of infanticide, a unique feature of these tribal societies.<ref></ref> In another Solomon island, San Cristóbal, the firstborn was considered "ahubweu" and often buried alive.<ref></ref> As a rationale for their behavior, some parents in British New Guinea complained: ''"Girls [...] don't become warriors, and they don't stay to look for us in our old age."''<ref>{{Citation
  | last = Langness
  | first = L.L.
  | author-link = 
  | contribution = Child abuse and cultural values: the case of New Guinea
  | editor-last = Korbin
  | editor-first = Jill
  | title = Child Abuse and Neglect: Cross-Cultural Perspectives
  | volume = 
  | pages = 15.
  | publisher = University of California Press
  | place = Berkeley
  | year = 1984}}</ref>
====Australia====
According to Victoria. Anthropologist Géza Róheim wrote:
<blockquote>When the Yumu, Pindupi, Ngali, or Nambutji were hungry, they ate small children with neither ceremonial nor animistic motives. Among the southern tribes, the Matuntara, Mularatara, or Pitjentara, every second child was eaten in the belief that the strength of the first child would be doubled by such a procedure.<ref> </ref></blockquote>

Family units usually consisted of three children. Brough Smyth, a 19th century researcher, estimated that in Victoria about 30% of the births resulted in infanticide.<ref name="The AbVic"></ref><!--p. 52--> Mildred Dickeman concurs that that figure is accurate in other Australia tribes as a result of a surplus of the birthrate.<ref> </ref> Cannibalism was observed in Victoria at the beginning of the 20th century. The Wotjo tribe, as well as the tribes of the lower Murray River, sometimes killed a newborn to feed an older sibling.<ref></ref> 

Thomas Robert Malthus wrote that, in the New South Wales region, when the mother died sucking infants were buried alive with her.<ref></ref> In the Darling River region, infanticide was practiced "by a blow on the back of the head, by strangling with a rope, or chocking with sand".<ref> </ref>

In Queensland a tribal woman could have children after the age of thirty. Otherwise babies would be killed.<ref> </ref>

The Aranda tribes in the Northern Territory used the method of choking the newborn with coal, sand or kill her with a stick.<ref name="OurPC"></ref><!-- p. 34 -->

According to James George Frazer, in the Beltana tribes in South Australia it was customary to kill the first-born.<ref></ref>

Twins were always killed by the Arrernte in central Australia.<ref name="OurPC"/><!--p. 34--> In the Luritcha tribe occasional cannibalism of young children occurred.<ref></ref>

Aram Yengoyan calculated that, in Western Australia, the Pitjandjara people killed 19% of their newborns.<ref></ref>