The Midwife’s Confession

Commissioned by the BBC World Service, for their global investigative documentary strand, the BBC Eye, the Midwife’s Confession is an award winning documentary released in 2024.

Anubha Bhonsle was the Executive Producer on the film, a circle of life story, seeded nearly thirty years ago. The archival material, never seen before had midwives in unflinching, clear testimonies confessing to killing newborn girls in the 1990s.

That’s the spark of the story that spanned almost three decades for the journalist Amitabh Parashar. A team of journalists, cinematographers led by Anubha Bhonsle in India, reported, uncovered and stitched together a compelling narrative of several interconnected personal journeys—a surviving midwife who confessed to killing baby girls, a woman whose life’s work it was to get the midwives to stop killing and bring her the baby girls, a young woman who as a baby was saved by one of the midwives and adopted by a loving family.

She returned to meet the surviving midwife, only to meet another baby girl whose life was going to meet a similar fate.

The 63-minute film is a compelling, visceral, and emotional journey of redemption, change, violence and a blend of the finest traditions of journalistic rigour, documentary film making and duty of care.