The inspiration to write a book on the issue of femicide in India came to me when my former fiancé (a Kashmiri Indian) was forced by his parents to break off our engagement. I knew that our story was not unique; while in India I met several others who told me they were forbidden to marry the person they were in love with. In my quest to understand this phenomenon, I began to research arranged marriage.

Opening the door to that investigation unleashed an ugly world of stories. Dowry death, bride burning, female foeticide and infanticide, a genocide of the Indian female population. One article after another of disturbing accounts: parents who kill their daughters - in utero or shortly after birth - to avoid the dreaded dowry, brides set on fire for not bringing in adequate or additional dowry, some of them harassed to the point of taking their own lives.

A week after my relationship ended, I made a commitment to continue my research and write a book about my findings. I spent the next 9-10 months reading everything that I could find in preparation to return to India to gather stories. Once there, I spoke with experts working in the field, with strangers in the street, talked to friends about their experiences, and interviewed a few who were willing to share their story. I will be returning to India in January to further my research and to collect more stories.

The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation because in the degradation of woman the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source. ~ Lucretia Mott

Welcome to my blog. The intent of this web-log is to share information and to create a dialogue for those who are interested in learning more, or for those who are knowledgeable on the subjects of arranged marriage, dowry, and female feoticide and infanticide, and would like to share their experience.

It’s a thorny topic that raises ire, rightfully so. Some of what I will be posting here are stories that have made the news, the sort of stories that you may wish that you had not read, the ones that are difficult to erase from our minds. For me, that difficulty is what impelled me to continue reading, researching, and now, writing about them. But stories, disheartening as they may be, help to raise our awareness and compel us to take action towards the eradication of violence.

Although the issues that I will be writing about pertain predominately to India, violence against women is a global phenomenon. Statistics are disturbing enough in themselves, but are not true indicators of the gravity of the situation since many incidents go unreported. In the U.S., four women are killed everyday in domestic violence disputes. Every fifteen seconds, a woman is battered, usually by her domestic partner. Globally, at least one in three women and girls have been beaten or sexually abused in their lifetime. It is important to keep this perspective in mind, to avoid the tendency to bash other cultures, when the problem is a pervasive one that exists everywhere.

A few years ago I saw the film Matrubhoomi: A Nation Without Women. A deeply disturbing Indian film said to be futuristic in nature, from the sound of the attached article, it looks like the future has arrived. Girls are becoming an endangered gender in India. While dowry is still demanded in most marriages, things are changing in some  parts of India where there are not enough women of marrying age. The result? Girls are being bought, sold, kidnapped, and trafficked. Unbelievably,...even local elections have candidates promising  brides in return for votes."

An excerpt from the November 11th edition of Hindustan Times:




Where have all the girls gone?

In the prosperous districts of Haryana and Punjab — where son preference has resulted in a skewed sex ratio — girls from economically weaker backgrounds in Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal are being openly bought in droves for ‘marriages’ that are  more often than not without the consent of the girl. The legal status of such wedlock, of course, remains questionable. According to data compiled by Shaktivahini, a Faridabad-based NGO that takes up anti-trafficking issues, there are up to 50,000 paros in Haryana alone, including a huge proportion of minors.  Faced with a crisis, even local elections have candidates promising brides in return for votes.

Census 2001 shows that the child sex ratio in Haryana and Punjab stands at 820 and 793 per 1,000 boys respectively. But according to the latest health survey by the  Punjab government, villages like Sansarwal in Patiala have touched an alarming 438 girls per 1,000 boys.

Ergo, girls are fast turning into a vanishing tribe. A recent United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report warns that female deficit in the marriageable age (20-49) is set to touch 25 million by the year 2030.

The impact, however, is already being felt here. Says Dr Madhav Mohan Godbole, the director of Balgrah, a rehabilitation centre in Rai, Sonepat, “Villagers come to us and plead for brides. They say if we can’t fix them up, they will be forced to buy girls.” Faced with a crisis, even local elections have candidates promising  brides in return for votes. Ram Prasad of Seoti village in Sonepat, concedes, “frequent trips are being made from all over Haryana to hunt for girls in Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand and even Maharashtra.”

In a typical ‘buying’ scenario, someone with ‘contacts’ in source states facilitates such arrangements in return for kharcha-paani, explains Rishikant of Shativahini. The ‘going rate’ ranges from Rs 6,000 –10,000, depending on the age and virginity.  Forced by poverty, many a time the paros also have to ‘accept’ polyandry.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/storypage/storypage.aspx?id=50e2edc5-4568-4309-a90f-03faca8f85cf&&Headline=Where+have+all+the+girls+gone%3f

In India, apparently, not much. According to a recent article in the Times of India, her worth is a tenth of the price of a buffalo in the northern state of Punjab where women are growing scarce due to rampant female foeticide.

FATEHGARH SAHIB: It is the matter of great shame that in Punjab a woman can be ‘purchased’ merely for Rs 3,000 while a buffalo is sold for Rs 30,000, said Punjab health minister Laxmi Kanta Chawala. She was addressing a seminar ‘Doctors for Daughters’ organized here on Sunday by the Punjab Chapter of Indian Medical Council. She said after 1947, the Punjabis had killed more daughters than the number of people killed during the partition.

Punjab health secretary Tilak Raj Sarangal said the situation was so grim that it was like social emergency which had started showing grim effects on the society. He said this situation had given rise to the concept of ‘Modern Daropadi’, where brothers were sharing one wife in a given household.

full story:

‘Buying’ woman is easier than buffalo:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Chandigarh/Buying_woman_is_easier_than_buffalo/articleshow/2551117.cms

History of Bias from Hindustan Times November 19, 2007 edition

Intro: this story is relevant to the book subject since one of the primary things fueling femicide in India is consumerism. While poverty is extreme in parts of India, the added burden of dowry is casting a dark shadow on India's burgeoning economy. India is a country in flux. Economically, it is growing exponentially. With economic growth comes opportunity for the betterment of life. For some. But for others, who are not a part of the boon, conditions worsen. The divide between those who grow wealthier and are blessed with prosperity, and those who live in the streets dependent on handouts for survival, is rising. One day while buying fruit for a young couple (she, a legless woman in a wheelchair), I suddenly found myself surrounded by a group of people with outstretched hands. As I was paying the vendor he told me how I would not see this begging and hunger in my country. I don’t think that he believed me when I told him that America has many hungry as well as homeless citizens. His eyes widened in disbelief: “In the most wealthy country in the world?” One young boy of maybe six or seven would always track me down in the street so that he could get his daily banana. It cost me little to give a piece of fruit, especially kalas (bananas) at two rupees a piece (approx. five cents). There are scams too; some who insist that you buy them the most expensive piece of fruit, generally a mango or papaya, so that they can sell it back to the vendor at half it’s market value and use the money for something else. It’s part of their survival, something to keep in mind as we sit in satiate comfort. The photo is one that I captured while I was a passenger in a rickshaw at a stoplight in Delhi. I had seen this man before on one other occasion; he was walking on his hands through traffic in an effort to get handouts. But on this day, he was (mostly) covered, sitting under the scant shade of a tree. When a friend of mine saw the photo, he said that it was fake, that the wound on his leg was not real. His reaction may be one of avoidance, not wanting to look at the plight of a fellow human being that he feels we can do little to help. It’s easier to pass by and look the other way. The other piece is that there is a “beggar mafia” in India. They are known to maim the impoverished and then send them out into the streets to beg with missing limbs as a way to garner more sympathy and money. Not wanting to support that, many people feel it is best to ignore a problem they feel they can do nothing about.

She has a young face
An old face
She carries herself well
In all ages
She survives all man has done

In some tribes she is free
In some religions
She is under man
In some societies
She’s worth what she consumes

In some nations
She is delicate strength
In some states
She is told she is weak
In some classes
She is property owned

In all instances
She is sister to earth
In all conditions
She is life bringer
In all life she is our necessity

See the woman eyes
Flowers swaying
On scattered hills
Sundancing calling in the bees

See the woman heart
Lavender butterflies
Fronting blue sky
Misty rain falling
On soft wild roses

See the woman beauty
Lightning streaking
Dark summer nights
Forests of pines mating
With new winter snow

See the woman spirit
Daily serving courage
With laughter
Her breath a dream
And a prayer

I recently signed up to receive google alerts on arranged marriage, dowry, and female feoticide. When articles are posted to the net, google sends me an e-mail with links to them. Everyday, I receive several articles on the aforementioned topics, an indication of how the problem of dowry related death and foeticide is growing in India. The stories that make it to the press are a small percentage of what actually gets reported. Fear, shame and deception keep many stories from being told.