Filicidio (murder of the own children): its 5 types and motivations.
Our children, probably, the people that most of us do. These are fragile creatures that have been born, that have needed and conquered from the moment they came to the world and by those who have done everything. Protecting the offspring is something natural for most human beings and for many other animals, often many parents come to risk or sacrifice their own lives in order to save them.
And not only on a biological level: our culture also places the family and the protection and care of this and especially of the offspring as one of the most important institutions. That is why cases like that of Breton, who murdered his children, has been shocked to society. We are talking about one of the most media filtering cases of recent times. Yes, about this type of crime, filicide, about which we are going to talk throughout this article.
Filicide: the murder of one's children.
It is known as filicide the murder of the own test of one or both parents, independently of the motive of said action or the methodology used for it. The context in which such murder or homicide occurs can be very variable, being able to appear from puerperal psychoses to the presence of intrafamily violence or the use of the minor as an object to harm the other member of the couple.
With respect to the victims, if the filicide does not refer to the age of the victim, the general norm has a greater risk of suffering lethal violence by their parents who are less than six months of age. With regard to sex, in Western society, differences in this respect have not been generally detected.
It is a crime that most of society considers less abject and unnatural and that is generally seen as something infrequent, but that although it is not usual, is found in the largest proportion of what seems a simple view. In fact, filicide is one of the types of crime that generates the most unnatural deaths of children, with a great majority of violent deaths of children caused by the parents themselves (the percentage of violent deaths of children by people outside the family is around 25%).
We are facing a very serious crime of blood harshly punished by law, not only to the fact of killing a person voluntarily but because of the aggravating circumstance that this is carried out by someone related to the victim abusing trust and attachment of the victim to the killer.
We have a relationship between dependence and a great difference in the power relations between both, abusing the difference in physical strength or superiority in age, experience and power dynamics and dependence for the sustenance and even survival of the victim for the executioner.
In addition, in many cases we are facing a murder in which there was a relationship of dependence and a great difference in the power relations between both, abusing the difference in physical strength or superiority in age, experience and dynamics of power and dependence for the sustenance and even survival of the victim towards his executioner.
Filicide or infanticide? Differences.
The truth is that although the concept is easily understandable the term filicide is not as well known among the general population, being much more common the use of the term infanticide for this type of crime. However, the truth is that although a filicide can be an infanticide, it is not synonymous concepts but have clear differences between them.
In the first place, while infanticide talks about the causation of the death of a child by an adult, to speak of filicide implies that the author of said death is one of the persons who maintains a filial relationship with the minor: one of parents.
One aspect that we also have to take into account is that when we think of a filicide we usually think that the murdered person is a boy or a girl, but the truth is that the concept actually refers to the intentional provocation of the death of a child or daughter regardless of this one's age.
What are the motivations that filicides usually have?
It is difficult to imagine what can motivate a person to actively provoke the death of one or more of their own children. However, some authors such as Resnick have tried to make a general classification of the reasons that have manifested in different cases. The research carried out reflected the following categories or types of filicide.
1. Altruistic filicide.
This type of filicide usually occurs when the child has some type of medical condition that makes or is considered that it will make you suffer all your life, or you suffer from some type of terminal illness. It is about causing the death of the son or daughter as a method of avoiding suffering.
Another subtype of filicide considered altruistic by the person who carries it out is that which is directly linked to the suicide of the aggressor himself. The father or mother tries to commit suicide and believes that their children will not be able to live or that it would be unfair abandon them, preferring to kill them before making them face the situation.
2. Generated by psychosis or mental illness.
Although the consideration that the people who perform this type of act are people with mental disorders is unreal, the truth is that in some cases they are given filicides in the context of mental illness. An example is during some type of psychotic outbreak, in the context of hallucinations or delusions in which the child is confused with a possible enemy, persecutor, murderer, alien or demon. Another option is that it is in women with postpartum depression, being of special risk the first days.
3. Unwanted child.
This type of filicide is motivated by the fact that the child in question was unwanted by the parents or by one of them, or by not being able to take care of the child. Technically some authors consider abortion as such, although filicide is usually reserved for children already born. A less dubious and controversial and more direct example is that which results from neglecting the needs of the child or abandoning it.
4. Accidental filicide.
It is considered as such the filicide that was not intended to cause the death of the child in question, but ends up leading to it. It is frequent in the context of intrafamily abuse or vicarious violence to break the will of the couple in the case of gender violence. It can also happen in the context of a fight.
5. Filicide for revenge or utilitarian.
The death of the child is used as an instrument of torture and revenge, usually to harm the couple for some kind of damage or rejection. It is a type of vicarious violence directed not so much towards the minor himself (his death is for the aggressor the least) but with the causation of harm to another person.
The filicida: habitual characteristics.
The fact of killing a child is not something, as we have said before, frequent. However, there are certain circumstances and characteristics that may facilitate the commission of this type of acts.
Among them it has been observed that many of the cases of filicide occur in persons with diminished capacity for maternity or paternity. In some cases there has been a deprivation of affection in the parent's own childhood, living the parent-child relationship as something negative in which there has been no love and possibly some kind of abuse.
Other possible risk factors are found with young mothers and fathers, whose first child appears before the age of 19, and with few economic and social resources. Finally, another distinct profile includes the presence of sadistic and psychopathic characteristics, lack of emotional attachment to the child and use of this as an instrument to manipulate, control or attack the other (this last profile also corresponds to that of the abuser).