Dowry deaths
- NEBO HK
- Sep 19, 2015
- 2 min read
A dowry is a transfer of property from the bride’s family to the groom or his family at the marriage of a daughter.
Dowry deaths are deaths of young women who are murdered or driven to suicide by continuous harassment and torture by husbands and in-laws in an effort to extort an increased dowry. India reports the highest total number of dowry deaths with 8,455 dowry-related deaths reported in 2014.
Most of the time, dowry deaths occur in young woman, who cannot bear the harassment and torture and commits suicide. Sometimes, the woman is killed by setting herself on fire (aka “bride burning”). Some of the time, however, these women are disguised as suicide or accident while the fact is that the groom’s family murder her.
Although the payment of dowries for marriage is illegal in India, they remain widespread across caste, class and educational divides. In recent years demands have become more insistent and expensive.
Let see the stories of 2 victims of dowry-related crimes.
Neha is a 29-year-old mother of 2 children, her in-laws threw gasoline at her during her sleep. As a result, she suffered from deep burns over 50% of her body surface area. The demands of dowry started right from the time she got married, her parents did whatever he could but their demands were endless from requesting a car to an apartment.
Seema Mishra is the mother of an 8-year-old girl, she is beaten up and thrown out of the house in the middle of night. Because of the physical violence she suffered, she lost her first child. She therefore saved herself from the unbearable misery by leaving her husband’s home with the daughter.
Because of this, for many families, boys bring in fortune while a girl depletes it. Therefore, female foeticide and infanticide is common in India. Indeed, there is an estimate of more than 500,000 female abortion every year. All it does not only happen in the uneducated or tribes with special cultures, it’s happening now, in states like Delhi, Haryana and Punjab.
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