Woman Strips Down To Underwear In Street After Being Tortured By In-Laws For A Dowry

[DeSwiss]

Indian woman strips in dowry row

By Jyotsna Singh
BBC News, Delhi
Thursday, 5 July 2007, 15:08 GMT


Ms Chauhan's supporters say it was
a protest of last resort

A woman in western India has stripped to her underwear in public to protest over alleged abuses from her husband's family for not providing a dowry. Her in-laws were questioned by the police and have been released on bail. The Hindu woman shocked residents of the normally conservative city of Rajkot in Gujarat state, by her half-naked parade through the street. Women's groups say her case highlights the plight of women who continue to face abuse at the hands of males.

'Extreme steps'
There are reports that the 22-year-old tried to set herself on fire a few days ago demanding the police take immediate action against her husband and in-laws, who she alleged had been physically torturing her for a dowry. In an interview to a local TV channel, Pooja Chauhan justified her action saying she did it to embarrass her husband and in-laws.

Although paying and accepting a dowry has been illegal in India for more than 40 years, it still goes on. Official estimates show that every year almost 7,000 women are killed by their spouses and in-laws because of inadequate dowry payments. Ranjana Kumari - who runs a refuge for victims of dowry and domestic abuse - says the law enforcement authorities need to be more active in tackling the problem.

"It's a shame that women are driven to take such extreme steps. The law enforcing agencies must be more active," she told the BBC News website. A police inspector in Rajkot, SS Jhala, told the BBC that "swift action" had been taken against Ms Chauhan's family, who had been arrested and were now on bail. Police have denied reports that they charged her for indecent behaviour.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6274318.stm

[iamjoy]

1. They Don't Treat Widows Much Better

Really horrible the way they treat their women.

[DeSwiss]

2. This stuff just makes me sick.... n/t

[iverglas]

9. I'm not impressed to see this in this forum

"They" treat "their" widows, "their" women ...

I'm sorry, but this sort of language in really unacceptable for so many reasons, and really does women no favours.

[Katherine Brengle]

12. I was just thinking the same thing.

Disgusting.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. well at least we let out women reach the highest elected office.

which is a whole lot more than you can say for yourself.

[aasleka]

3. !

Looks like she is speaking loud and carrying a big stick!

I am glad she didn't torch herself and instead seemed to get angry and try to do something about it!

The world needs more women like that.

[DeSwiss]

5. The world needs more women like that....

I agree.

We especially need them alive!

And welcome to DU :hi:

[aasleka]

7. !

"And welcome to DU "

Thanks! Although i have been here for years.

[DeSwiss]

8. Hey, longer than me....

...then you can welcome me! :D

[LiberalFighter]

4. Is their police department 100% in compliance with the dowry prohibition?

[DeSwiss]

6. I would think not....

That's also probably why they didn't arrest her. It would only shine a light on what they're already ignoring.

From the article:
"Although paying and accepting a dowry has been illegal in India for more than 40 years, it still goes on. Official estimates show that every year almost 7,000 women are killed by their spouses and in-laws because of inadequate dowry payments. .... Police have denied reports that they charged her for indecent behaviour."

If 7,000 women in India are killed each year for having inadequate dowry payments, there's no telling how many are beaten and abused, and just don't come to anyone's attention because there's no corpse.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. By all accounts, it's one of these things that is officially illegal but

widely practiced. You know, it's "culture" to demand high dowries of your sons' wives and then torture and kill them if their parents don't pony up more upon demand.

The custom of exorbitant dowries is also a reason for high rates of sex selection abortion among affluent families and neglect of girl children in poorer families (If a boy gets sick, the parents will call a doctor, but not if a girl gets sick, or if there's a food shortage, the boys will be fed, not the girls.)

Given the illegal but customary requirements for dowries, a daughter is a definite financial liability.

Ironically, the result is major gender imbalance, which in the American West, at least, raised the status of women. Since there was no tradition of arranged marriages, women in the Old West could be fussy about who they accepted as a lover or husband, and in addition, they clearly worked as hard as the men, sometimes running ranches on their own. It's no coincidence that the Western states were the first ones to allow women to vote.

Unfortunately, gender imbalance in India and China does not seem to have had that effect. In China, it has led to a men who can't find a wife in other ways kidnapping young women, some of whom are already married.

The preference for boys in these two cultures is a great example of attempts to gain individual advantage being bad for the society as a whole and coming back to bite the individual families. Each individual family wants to have sons instead of daughters. The idea is that the sons stay with their parents and support them in their old age, while daughters join another family and in India, require a huge investment in a dowry.

However, if enough families follow this pattern of sex selection abortion or abandonment or neglect of daughters, then these precious sons have no one to marry and will have no one to take care of THEM in their old age.

In cases like this, you almost feel like saying, "Duh!"

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. Absolutely - game theory is wonderful stuff.

Here in the UK, it was World War I that finally got women the vote, after they were left effectively running the country when an entire generation of men got sent off to war.

[Nobody]

14. China and India What if....

In a few generations there will be a serious population drop-off. Historically, the ancient world was the same way. Poorer families fed boys and not girls. Instead of aborting female fetuses, they abandoned girl babies in the wilderness. And when there were too many males that made it to adulthood, wars would break out, bringing the population back in sync.

The Spartans were more enlightened, they valued strong women and strong men. In order to bear strong, healthy children, there must be a strong, healthy mother.

The Athenians, for all the talk about being the cradle of democracy, were no better than the prevailing traditions. Feed the men first. then the boys, if there's anything left over, feed the pregnant and nursing women, then finally the rest of the women and girls. Malnourished women don't bear strong, healthy children, and often can't get pregnant at all.

Nowadays, you've got abortion and sex selection techniques (not 100% effective) and most people when there is a choice to be made will choose to have a son and not a daughter. Even in the supposedly enlightened USA. Even when studies were done and the survey takers refused to allow "either sex as long as it's healthy" as an answer. They pressed. The number of "As long as it's healthy" became "OK, a boy" significantly more than 50% of the time. (I read about this in the mid-80's and it may have changed. I certainly hope so. I remember this survey in particular because my own family is the same way. My sister was pregnant with Kid #2. She already had a son, and my mother was exclaiming in front of all of her granddaughters and her three daughters, myself included: "I Loooooooove little boys!" I said: "You love girls, too, right?" I was a smartass teenager acutely aware of sexism in society.)

In the 80s, the world's human population was about 52% female. Now we're at 50%. Give or take a few decimal places. Given all this, I expect that the world's population will shift to 48% female in about 20 years.

There is a book I read called "Too Many Women" about what happens when the population gets skewed too far in any direction. I found it chilling. In either case, women balance on the edge of a sword and any major disruption in the world has a good chance of erasing the gains we fought so hard for and won. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq if you want a current, real world example. James Tiptree Jr (aka Alice Sheldon) wrote a short story on this theme, "The Women Men Don't See".

Lesson for all of us: Value the women as well as the men. Failure to di so will lead to misery on a number of fronts and not just for the women.