Father Throws Newborn Girl Off a Cliff Because He Wanted a Son, Baby Miraculously Survives

International   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Nov 1, 2018   |   2:38PM   |   Beijing, China

A father in China admitted to attempted infanticide last week after police said he took his newborn daughter out of the hospital and threw her off a cliff.

The infant survived, the Daily Mail reports.

Police said the father, identified only as Li, wanted a son.

The case is an example of the discrimination and abuse that women and girls face in China. Baby girls frequently are targeted for abortion or infanticide. Researchers estimate somewhere between 35 million and 60 million girls are missing in China today because of sex-selection abortions and infanticide.

Fortunately, authorities were able to save the baby girl in this case.

On Friday, a doctor at Magui Health Center in Guangdong province, China, reported a newborn girl missing, Gaozhou Television reports. Police said their initial investigation led them to suspect Li, the baby’s father.

Here’s more from the Daily Mail:

The man finally admitted to placing his daughter into a large nylon bag and throwing her off a cliff in a rural area because he had hoped for a son instead, according to the report citing Magui district police.

Officers immediately led a team of rescuers and volunteers down the steep cliff to search for the baby girl.

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Suddenly, the team heard the faint cries of the baby and were able to locate her about 30 metres (100 feet) down from the edge of the cliff, much to the relief of the rescuers.

They told reporters that she was found perched on top of several tree branches, which protected her from fatal injuries.

Authorities estimated the infant was there for about 12 hours before they rescued her.

The baby is doing well and has been released to her mother, according to the report. Police said the father is in custody as they continue their investigation.

The father reportedly told police they have two girls and a boy already, and he did not want another girl. He said he felt pressured financially to have a son, because they are poor.

As horrifying as the allegations are, these situations are not unique. China has a huge gender imbalance. Late last year, the Epoch Times reported the ratio of boys to girls in China currently is 115.4 to 100. News reports have highlighted the growing problems with this gender imbalance, including how millions of young men in China cannot find women to marry.

China loosened its one child policy in 2016, allowing families to have two children or, in rare cases, more; but the change has done very little to alleviate the gendercide. Families report they still face pressure from the population control police to have fewer children, to be sterilized and even to abort their unborn babies. Some of the abuses include being coerced or forced to abort their unborn children, fired from their jobs and penalized with huge fines.