Hundreds of thousands of young girls in India die every year because of “invisible discrimination”, according to research published in the Lancet Global Health.

根据《柳叶刀》全球健康杂志上发表的研究，在印度，由于传统的重男轻女观念根深蒂固，成千上万的女童因此夭折。

Researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis estimate an average of 239,000 girls under five in India die each year, or 2.4 million in a decade, because of their gender.

来自国际应用系统分析研究所的研究人员估计，由于性别歧视，印度每年平均有23.9万名五岁以下的女孩死亡，或者说十年内的死亡女童数高达240万。

Many of the deaths were due to neglect, both within their families and from health practitioners, as well as an “invisible, routine and continued”, bias Indian girls experience in food allocation. Studies have shown that Indian girls receive less education, have poorer nutrition and get less medical attention than boys.

许多不幸都是由于他们的家庭照料人员以及健康从业人员的疏忽造成的，以及“无形的、常态化的、持续的”、在给印度女孩分配食物的经验方面的偏见。研究表明，印度女孩受教育程度较低，营养不良，受到的医疗照顾比男孩少。

Under natural conditions and in countries where no such gender bias exists, mortality rates for girls under five should be lower than those for boys due to a natural biological advantage.

在自然条件下，以及没有女孩性别歧视的国家，由于天生的生物优势，五岁以下女童的死亡率应当是低于男童的。

But the researchers, who used census data from 2000-2005, found what they described as an “excess mortality rate” among girls under five across 29 out of 35 Indian states. The rate was 18.5 per 1,000 live births. The worst affected was northern India, which has a number of large rural agricultural states with low education and socio-economic development levels and high fertility.

但是，研究人员使用了2000-2005年的人口普查数据，发现在印度的35个邦里，有29个邦的5岁以下女童出现了他们所谓的“超额死亡率”。每1000人中就有18.5人死亡。这个问题在印度北部地区最突出，那里有大片的农村区域，教育水平低，社会经济发展程度低，出生率却很高。

Christophe Guilmoto from the Université Paris-Descartes, France, said that for too long, the focus had been on pre-natal sex selection.

法国巴黎笛卡尔大学的里斯托弗·吉尔莫托表示，长期以来，人们都关注的是产前的性别选择。

“Gender-based discrimination towards girls doesn’t simply prevent them from being born, it may also precipitate the death of those who are born,” said Guilmoto. “Gender equity is not only about rights to education, employment or political representation. It is also about care, vaccination and nutrition of girls, and ultimately survival.”

“对女孩的性别歧视不仅令许多女婴根本没有来到人世的机会，还让已经出生的女孩面临死亡的威胁。” 吉尔莫托说，“性别平等不仅仅意味着教育、就业和参与政治的机会均等，它也体现在给女孩提供的关爱、预防接种、营养，以及最根本的存活的权利。”

India, in common with China, is known for having a skewed sex ratio, due to sex-selective abortions. Interestingly, the results did not coincide with states known for sex selection, such as Punjab, Gujarat and Mahrashtra.

与中国类似，印度也因性别选择性堕胎而出现性别失衡。有趣的是，这一结果与以性别选择著称的旁遮普邦、古吉拉特邦和马哈拉施特拉邦并不吻合。

But in northern India’s four largest states, Utter Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, the level of “excess mortality” among girls was much higher than the average – as high as 30 per 1,000 live births.

但是在印度北部的四个最大的邦——北方邦、比哈尔邦、拉贾斯坦邦和中央邦，女孩的“超额死亡率”高于平均水平——每1000人中有30人夭折。

Dr Nandita Saikia, the paper’s co-author, said any intervention to reduce discrimination against girls should target priority states in northern India.

该论文的合著者南迪塔斯?赛基亚博士说，任何减少对女孩歧视的干预措施都应该优先针对印度北部的重点地区。

“Discrimination towards the girl child is not justified,” Saikia said. “As the regional estimates of excess deaths of girls demonstrate, any intervention to reduce the discrimination against girls in food and healthcare allocation should therefore target priority regions of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh where poverty, low social development and patriarchal institutions persist, and investments in girls are limited.

赛基亚说，“对女孩的歧视是不公平的。” “各地区因性别歧视而夭折女童的数据显示，要减少对女童在食物、医疗资源分配上的性别歧视，需要重点关注像比哈尔邦、北方邦这样的贫困地区，这些地区一般社会发展程度低，父权思想根深蒂固，对女孩的投入有限。”

（来源：爱语吧）