Dowry : The shameless blockbuster story of our country

I was skimming the newspapers today late morning (some of luxuries because of a mid week holiday); suddenly a small news article caught my attention. The news was about the suicide of a man because he couldn’t get the money for his daughter’s dowry. The amount was only INR 50K plus few other “gifts”.  It pains that there is no end for such stories. We call ourselves cultured, educated people. What education and culture do these murderers have? Animals are better than us.

We are one of the fastest growing economies on this planet. The rapid commercialization has caused a serious degradation of our value system. Today we are worried about the latest gadgets, glamour, pay checks etc. There is no place for human values, compassion, and love. In our society marriage was considered very sacred, the central pillar around which the society worked. But today this is one of the most profitable business. The love and companionship in the relation is replaced by the paychecks and the status.
 The same degradation in human value sustains this demand of dowry. My readers will be surprised that this problem is not limited to the lower, illiterate sections of the society. We can find this menace in all layers of society.  People with highest education from IIT’s & IIM’s also demand this!!!This is not a relationship; this is a commercial deal where the girl’s family loses.

A lavish and pompous ceremony has become the norm of the day. Rather than talking about the character and beauty of the girl, people talk about the cost of the marriage dress & the finer intricacies of the Kg’s of the gold she wears for the ceremony.  Her friends and families try to match her or even improve their own status by adding few more Kg’s of gold to their wedding. There is no harm if one can easily afford this but it is bad, an evil practice when you are forced to do so to maintain the “status” or the norms of the society. I believe there would be a better status if you can give something from your luxury to the poor on your wedding; feed them, cloth them or give some money to those souls who cannot afford a decent marriage function.  At least you will have a satisfaction that you did something good and the bonus of smiles and prayers from the people you helped.

Dowry has become a trend setter in many families. Some families say that their so and so relatives got so much at their son’s marriage and now they will lose face if they don’t demand more!!!   They continuously terrorize the poor girl’s families till all their demands are met.  Any sensible guy should be ashamed of this. Their families are trading them openly as if they are cattle. The girl’s family pays money to buy such animals for their daughter. My dear brothers have you ever thought about the status you are trying to maintain by being part of such a process?  You are no better than a sheep or any other cattle. For me my friends and family are priceless. I will not trade them even if I got all the treasure of this earth. I think this is what is said to every son by their mothers and families but in reality it seems that they are not priceless. We can easily find their value in this trade market.

I believed that this system was prevalent only in arranged marriages. Few days back I read an article about the death of 26 year old women. She was working as a manger in a private company.  She met a guy through a common friend. After two years of courtship he proposed. Both the families agreed to the relationship. But the guy and his family were demanding dowry before the wedding. The guy even suggested to his fiancée that she should commit suicide if her family cannot meet his demands!!! Being a faithful partner she followed his advice. My heart and prayers are with that pour soul and her family. I don’t know what type of punishment should be given to such devils.

The cost and pressure caused by this heinous system is one of the major causes of female infanticide. In many families the moment a girl child is born, the worry starts. Many of my colleagues have daughters. Few months back a new angel came to bless my colleague. After few days of child birth we invited him for a weekend tour to a nearby tourist place. He jokingly said that he cannot spend like before because he has to save for his daughter’s wedding (an event that might happen after 25 years)!!! I liked that he loved his family and cares for them but I would have been happier if he had said that he is saving for his daughters education and for fulfilling her dreams. I know about a dad who worked hard all his life, saving every penny he could save. His daughter’s marriage was great, meeting all the parameters and norms of the society. But unfortunately within one year the marriage ended in divorce. She had only a moderate education. Now her life is in a standstill without any direction or purpose. If he had invested all those resources in her proper education and fulfilling her dreams she would have at least got a decent job and purpose in life.
Now lets us look at some of statistics.

According to the figures there was 8391 deaths reported because of dowry in 2012 in India when compared to 6995 deaths in 2000. Surely India is improving its standards. I believe only a very small percentage of the dowry deaths are reported (could be as less as 10%); there are many deaths which go un-reported. The figures show only a tip of iceberg hidden under the complex society rules. There are thousands of others who are living dead because of this system, continuously being abused verbally, physically and emotionally.
It a high time that we acted against this menace, raising our voice collectively.

 

http://zoomview.blogspot.in/2012/08/dowry-shameless-blockbuster-story-of.html

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International Women’ds Day (IWD); can you help ?

 

It started almost 100 years ago in 1911 a day to celebrate womanhood. This year’s theme is “Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women”. How true. May all of us have equal access to quality education.

 

Many of us even don’t know why such a day was started also. If I take a newspaper I get an impression that it is a mini valentine day for the people who missed the previous month’s date. Certainly this is much bigger than the impression we get through our Media.

Nothing much to write about today but I would like to hear more about the last two posts I wrote.

• http://zoomview.blogspot.com/2011/02/women-and-insensitive-indian-society.html
• http://zoomview.blogspot.com/2011/03/women-and-insensitive-indian-society-ii.html

 It will really help us spread the correct message (already I got many but we need more participation). We already got a small group to spread this awareness but I need few more volunteers. Anyone interested?

 

 

 

 

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Women and an insensitive Indian society (II) – the reason

Thanks for all those wonderful feedback (mostly I got in email).

Almost all the e-mails mentioned about awareness and educating the people. But in a typical traditional Indian family where is the chance for such awareness? Which family gives priority to such ideals? We prefer high grades in exams but what about the awareness and sensitivity towards other lives around us? Which is the right place for such awareness? Is home the best place or at school? Schools will be more interested in securing prizes in so called cultural meets and reality shows but it’s very rare that I heard about any such cultural education being given to the younger generation.

In my own family I have seen this discrimination & this should be a very common sight in most of the families. Even when a girl child is in mother’s womb the so called rules and regulations are created in the family. She can’t do this she can’t do that. It is against our tradition. No women in our family did that …… the list goes on. I can even compile a book bigger than the encyclopedias with such don’t do list.

A lot of ladies talk about liberation, equality etc. but do they practice this? I believe if a change has to happen around us, first of all we have to change. There is no meaning in complaining about the inequalities in society if we ourselves don’t act on the principles we are preaching. There are many instances when I argued with my mom when she tried to enforce such rules on my sister. It’s anyone guess who won the argument. I lost heavily. There was no constraint on the education, love or any such things in our family among us children. Even my sister got a lot of freedom which is rarely available to other girl child in our society. I appreciate my mom and dad for that. But was she free to do all the things I was allowed to do? Certainly my sister cannot complain but there was this slight difference. She had a second grooming in cooking and other such other small household jobs. This is certainly good but soon it became her duty to do such things and I was never asked to do any such thing. Even when I volunteered, many times I was asked to do something suitable for boys; cooking and other such house hold jobs were for womenfolk. No one complained when I did cooking, washing and other such household jobs. But such occasions were very rare.

I was very fortunate that I didn’t see much discrimination in my family. But this is not the case in most of the other families. Girls are not allowed to study, they are not allowed to go out or mingle with others. In many parts of our country girls are kept like animals. They don’t have proper food, clothes, education. They are not even allowed to dream. Even when such basic things amenities are given she is under tremendous pressure. With 24×7 monitoring by family I don’t think most of them would even get a chance to breathe freely. With such pressure many don’t express their likes and dislikes. They are merely the puppets in the hands of their “strict” family. On many occasions when I went for campus recruitment I have observed this trait among the young engineers. In my professional and personal life also I have seen many who fear expressing their likes and dislikes. With a heavy baggage of the big don’t do list we cannot expect them to fight the discrimination. They are always at disadvantage. From this perspective, men think that women are weak. They can do whatever they like and they are just another instrument to satisfy their wishes. I cannot complain because no one told them otherwise. From childhood they are fed this notion that they are superior and women are second class citizens with no voice to protest, complain or express their likes and dislikes.

 We can find the equality in almost all spheres of our life. If we look in our modern families we will see many working super moms who manage the office work and house. How many men help them in their daily “jobs”? In a family the onus should be on both. Men should also take equal responsibility is raising children and doing other household jobs. Last time when I had a discussion about this among my cousins I got support only from one of my brothers. Few days ago a very prominent figure in Indian society said that women should only do the things allowed by our culture. They have to first take care of the children and house. True, I agree but what about the menfolk don’t they have any culture or dharma? When men stay late in parties drinking alcohol they are called sophisticated and when women do such things they are called immoral!!!! (Personally I don’t drink or smoke so usually I don’t get invitations for such parties but still I cannot stop comparing the different perspective.). There are many such examples. Such notions of using different yardstick for same actions should be eliminated from our minds. 

The attitude and approach of a gentleman who has seen equality at his home will be far different. If the parents teach with action that boy and girl has equal rights and should respect each other’s decisions, wishes then the world will be different place to live altogether. Many men are initially shocked when they see women expressing them. In their family they never experienced this. So they take shelter in old Indian culture (but I wonder do they really know the meaning of culture.) and insult women with their words and actions.

 This is a request to all those young mother s please burn that old “don’t do list”. Treat your children equally. If you deny something to a girl child, justify and use the same logic in case of your son. If your son can do it surely your daughter can also do it. From the very first day teach the principles of respect, equality and love to all others without any discrimination.
http://zoomview.blogspot.com/2011/03/women-and-insensitive-indian-society-ii.html

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Acid attacks – by the devils from hell

Today was just like any other Sundays “late to bed and late to wake up makes a Sunday worth living”.  While skimming through the newspapers an article about an acid attack victim caught my attention. Just like most of us do I paused for a moment and then continued my reading. But the image lingered on my mind throughout the day. The eyes were saying something to me. Did it complain or were there any tears in it? By evening I was quite busy into my technical research but then again the image resurfaced. It created enough ripples in my mind. I googled and the images I found shocked even my soul. I was shocked, such a heinous crime by a human being on another?

BANGLADESH. Dhaka. June 2005.Nobisa Begam. 15 Years old. Photographed three days after acid was thrown in her face for refusing a marriage proposal..(Courtesy bop.nppa.org)

What should I call these acts of violence? The perpetrators of this violence are they human or devil himself in human form? It is one of the most violent crimes against women. It is not only an act against her dignity, self respect, independence but also against the fundamental principle of humanity on which our civilized society is standing. It is a trauma that these hapless victims have to undergo everyday of their life. Everyday when they look into mirror (those who are still lucky to have their eyes after the attack many were not so luck) the pain they have undergone, the humiliation they have suffered re-surfaces.

Most of the attacks are by husbands or the people known to the victims with a major share from the so called “lovers”. I couldn’t understand how could people throw acid when a woman refuses their proposal? They say they loved and how could someone hurt some body so much? This is not committed in a fit of passion. A lot of planning is required for it. Guys if this has crossed your mind then remember it’s not worth. Love is not about taking by violence it is sacrifice of what you have. Love demands patience and sacrifice and not violence. If you have truly loved someone you will happily give your life for a single smile of your loved ones. Yow will never think about harming in any way. So if you have thought in any other fashion then you can be sure that you never loved. Even the most pure and polite approach might lead to failure but then it shouldn’t drive yourself to this crime against humanity. Pause and look around and see how many smiles, how many hopes you will kill with your action. You may be provoked to your limits but remember life has a lot of things to offer.

Angura. 30 years old, lies with her son and mother on the floor of her ward in the hospital run by the Acid Survivors Foundation in Dhaka. Her husband and another man threw acid on her and then burnt her eyes with a blowtorch after she refused her husband permission to take another woman into their home.(Courtesy bop.nppa.org)

In some places it is used as a too, to suppress women, to curtail their independence. There were reports of acid attacks on girl student inAfghanistan by the Taliban and its allies. They were against the women education and hence these attacks. Elsewhere in places like Kashmiracids were thrown on women who refused to wear the burkha. There were attacks on women by the jealous employer.  In some part of theIndia acid attack was used to strengthen the evil clutches of casteism.

Such news is always sensational which our media are ever ready to feed on. But after this sensation do we ever think how these people go about their life. The may get big promises of compensation and sympathy but are they fulfilled? Even if sufficient compensation is given how can we compensate the pain, the agony, the shame, the humiliation they have undergone?

How can we prevent this? We cannot stop the supply of acids. This is freely available in markets which even a child can buy for a paltry amount. The need of hour is a quality education with proper emphasize on humanity and its values. Those who commit such heinous crime should get the maximum punishment possible under law. If it was in my power I would have given a death punishment, after treatment in the same fashion an eye for an eye. I would have stoned them to death. I know I may look like a barbaric in my verdict but these crimes are worse form of barbarism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_throwing

http://zoomview.blogspot.com/2009/12/acid-attacks-by-devils-from-hell.html

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The lost (killed) daughters of India

It is the holocaust of India, the biggest massacre. But nobody is listening. Over 10 million female fetuses may have been aborted in India over the last 20 years!!!!!!
We have heard news about un-born foetus in drains, sacks and all other places. They were the stories of murder in daylight but still it continues.

The methods adopted to kill unwanted children in India are often cold-blooded and cruel.

The ritual is performed by a family member or a professional killer, by swaddling a new-born in a wet cloth or simply giving her a spoonful of paddy grain with milk.

It simply cuts her tender throat, suffocating her to death.

At times, the mother is forced to hire a sweeper for a small sum of 25 -100 rupees to dispose of the child by simply poisoning the baby with the latex of the calitropis plant, or holding her so close to a table that she cannot breath.

In the early 19th century, British colonel Alexander Walker recorded his horror at seeing a mother drowning her newborn girl in a trough of milk in the western Gujarat region.

But now abortion of female foetuses or “female foeticide” has become common with the easy availability of ultrasound sex tests.
It’s an unholy alliance of tradition and technology. Ultrasound was not meant for sex selection.

It is a myth that who seeks to find out the sex of their unborn child is poor, rural and illiterate. We the so called educated savages are in front killing the un-born miracles for no fault of them & only because of their gender!!!!!

The consequence of female infanticide and, more recently, abortion is India’s awkwardly skewed gender ratio, among the most imbalanced in the world. Infanticide is illegal in India (though never prosecuted), and laws are also in place to stop sex- selective abortions. But in some places, national rules don’t hold enough sway to overcome local religious and social customs – which remain biased in favor of sons over daughters.

Campaigners have been trying to alert the government to the potential long-term social impact of the phenomenon, warning that, among other problems, it will make it harder for men to find wives. In China, where a one-child policy is strictly enforced, prenatal sex selection has resulted in an estimated 40 million bachelors.

Technology is simply making it easier to eliminate the girl child. And in a society where the girl itself is seen as a genetic product to be eliminated, this has frightening implications

India stipulates that only a government hospital, registered facility, or medical practitioner with appropriate qualifications may perform an abortion. The reality, however, is that only about 15 percent of all abortions take place under such circumstances, according to the Indian Medical Association. About 11.2 million illegal abortions are performed each year off the record. Such abortions are often “female feticide,” experts say.

In Salem district, for instance, signs posted in towns reinforce the societal message: “Pay 500 rupees and save 50,000 rupees later,” a suggestion that aborting a female fetus now could save a fortune in wedding expenses in the future.

Nearly 60 percent of girls born in Salem District are killed within three days of birth, according to the local social welfare department. That doesn’t count the growing number of abortions there to ensure a girl baby won’t be carried to term.

Amid such stubborn statistics, activists are at work to counter the forces of tradition. A focus of their work: improving the standing and self-image of women themselves.

In pockets of India where female infanticide persists, the practice is rooted in a complex mix of economic, social, and cultural factors. Parents’ preference for a boy derives from the widespread belief that a son lighting his parents’ funeral pyre will ensure that their souls ascend to heaven; that he will be a provider in their later and that he will preserve the family inheritance.

Personally I prefer to be in hell rather than heaven built on the poor souls of my sisters & daughters. How could God give permission to these murderers to enter heaven? A girl or boy both are the divine form of God. Why should we discriminate against each other? By killing the un-born child we are not booking our seat in heaven but securing a free visa to hell.

Trivia
This is not a story of India alone; we can find these dark stories from every continent from every country;
In the case of China, social scientists are talking about a future in which 15 percent of men won’t have wives. According to Asia expert Nicholas Eberstadt, the trend, termed the “marriage squeeze,” is an anthropological phenomenon partly due to China’s “one child” policy that began in 1978 with the intent of slowing growth in the world’s most populous country.
“The world has never before seen the likes of the bride shortage that will be unfolding in China in the decades ahead,” writes Mr. Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, in a recent study, “Power and Population in Asia.”

• Characteristics of Gender-Ratio Imbalances in India: http://www.unfpa.org/gender/docs/studies/india.pdf
  
• Lost mothers of India: http://zoomview.blogspot.com/2009/03/lost-mothers-of-india.html
  

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Lost mothers of India

Avoidable complications during child birth are killing 78,000 women in India every year. This means on an average, one woman dies from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth every seven minutes.

On the other hand, one million children born in India are dying every year even before they become 28 days old. A child born in India is 14 times more likely to die during the first 28 days than one born in the US or UK.

These are some of the shocking findings of UNICEF’s `State of the World’s Children 2009′ report released on Thursday.

According to the report, an Indian woman is 300 times more likely to die in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications than women in America or England. For every mother who dies, 20 others suffer pregnancy-related illness. Around 10 million women annually experience such adverse outcomes.

Despite an increase in institutional deliveries, 60% of pregnant women still deliver their babies at home.

In India, more than two-thirds of all maternal deaths occur in a handful of states — UP, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Assam.

In UP, one in every 42 women faces risk of maternal death, compared to 1 in 500 women in Kerala.

As far as neonatal deaths (within the first 28 days of life ) are concerned, the worst-off states include Orissa (52 deaths per 1,000 live births), MP (51), UP (46), Rajasthan (45), and Chhattisgarh (43).

The report points out that babies whose mothers die during the first six weeks of their lives are more likely to die in the first two years of life. “For every 100 children born in the world, 20 are from India. For every 100 children who die globally, 22 die in India,” UNICEF India chief Karin Hulshof said.

According to her, the health and survival of mothers and their newborns are intrinsically linked. “Many of the same interventions that save maternal lives also benefit their infants. Even though India has cut its under-five mortality rate from 117 per 1,000 live births to 72 between 1990 and 2007, neonatal deaths contribute to 50% of these under-five deaths,” Karin added.

According to the report, three-quarters of all maternal deaths in India occur from complications either during delivery or in the immediate post-partum period.

A quarter of the world’s unattended deliveries take place in India, which is one of 10 countries which together account for two-thirds of births not attended by skilled health workers.

The report also points to India’s shameful statistics regarding breastfeeding. Experts say universalisation of early breastfeeding, within one hour of birth, would reduce neonatal mortality in India by 22% while universalisation of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life would avert nearly 16% of young child deaths.

However, the report says only one in four children are breastfed within one hour of birth.

Annually, around 6 million children born in India have low birth weight.

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Honor killing no honor at all

Its a fashion now – Honor killings but what sense of honor is achieved by these murders? Every other day we hear about many such glorified deaths.The perpetrators unpunished

Honor crimes are not specific to any religion, nor are they limited to any one region of the world. Fathers, brothers, uncles, relatives, community everybody kills for one reason or other. Some justifying tradition , sect, religion. Are they glorifying it or destroying the very fabric of its survival ? They don’t know and of course the dead will never know about it. Who is to blame ?

Reports submitted to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights show that honor killings have occurred in Bangladesh, Great Britain, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Sweden, Turkey, and Uganda. In countries not submitting reports to the UN, the practice was condoned under the rule of the fundamentalist Taliban government in Afghanistan, and has been reported in Iraq and Iran.

In Jordan, if a woman seeks protection from the police because she fears that her family wants to kill her, she will be held in indefinite detention in a local prison. It is important to note that once a woman has sought protection from the government and has been placed in prison, she is prohibited according to the government’s policy from leaving the prison even though she has committed no crime. Ironically, women can only be released into the custody of a family member — perhaps the very persons trying to kill them. If these women are killed, they are buried in unmarked graves and their very existence denied.

The noble values of dignity and seniority are neglected. Instead, the only focus is on the woman’s body and her virginity. According to this definition, the woman is an object owned by the man who assumes responsibility for her behavior and her life. The social traditions lead to the isolation of the woman in her home. She is required to cover her entire body in order to maintain the honor of the man. A decent honorable man has to have a decent honorable woman. The major factor in this theory is the body of the woman that is capable of bringing new members for the family, so that it can extend and live longer. Thus, the woman’s body is the private property of her husband. By maintaining and protecting it, there will be no confusion between families in the community. The family, and men in particular, have the responsibility to defend the honor of ‘their’ woman. (Al-Turki and Zuraiq, 1995, Page 104)

Honor crimes are a clear violation of women’s human rights and states are bound to protect women from such violations. Nonetheless, in many countries, honor crimes are either condoned through government inaction or defended as legitimate cultural practices

Links

• The Dynamics of Honour Killings : http://www.unfpa.org/publications/detail.cfm?ID=320&filterListType=
• Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing
  

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Beaten and buried alive for choosing life partner !!!

Well this was a news item which i could stop my self from posting … no comments required. Its a real horror

Issue not debated in Senate in deference to “tribal traditions”

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Five women from Umrani tribe in Balochistan were shot at and later buried alive

Though incident took place on July 14, case registered only on Monday

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ISLAMABAD: Following a national outcry, the government scrambled on Monday to arrest four people suspected of involvement in burying five women alive in Balochistan and exhumed two bodies for investigations.

The Senate, Parliament’s Upper House, thoroughly embarrassed by two of its veteran members, who last week put up a staunch defence of the “honour killings” as a “tribal tradition,” also sought to make amends.

The House had a lengthy discussion on the issue and passed a resolution condemning the burial, demanding that those who behind the crime should be tried and punished.

The five women belonged to the Umrani tribe. Among them, three were teenagers who wanted to marry men of their choice. The two other women were the mother of one girl and an aunt, who supported the decision of the girls.

According to a report by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), the women were abducted by a group of men belonging to the Umrani tribe and taken to a remote spot in Jaferabad in eastern Balochistan.

There, the men first sprayed bullets at the teenagers, and while they were still breathing, are reported to have pushed their bodies into a ditch and started throwing mud and stones at them. When the two older women protested, they were pushed into the ditch too and buried with the others.

Though the incident happened on July 14, a case was registered only on Monday morning. The AHRC and newspaper reports alleged the police did not take note of the killings because the brother of a provincial Minister, a member of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was involved.

1. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/five-women-beaten-and-buried-alive-in-pakistan-honour-killing-915714.html
2. http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/02/stories/2008090260641400.htm
3. http://infidelsarecool.com/2008/09/01/pakistan-honor-killing-3-teenagers-buried-alive-for-attempting-to-choose-their-own-husbands/

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Rape – The national crime of India and other countries

Congratulation guys!!! You have done it by sheer hard work. Rape has become the national crime of India (well I would say almost all countries). Almost every 30 minutes one women is raped in India (for those statisticians, one every 2 minutes in United States).Majority of the cases go unreported. There nothing to be proud of. We should be ashamed of ourselves. This is not a problem of one country. This is universal problem irrespective of the geography, religion language or education.

Quoting Justice Arjit Pasayat – “While a murderer destroys the physical frame of the victim, a rapist degrades and defiles the soul of a helpless female.”

Not even a single day passes without any such incident in media. The ever news hungry media sensationalize these issue for publicity and makes the rapists a national hero. Seldom have they thought of the trauma and tragedy the victim and her family has to undergo. The only thing they are bothered about is their ratings and viewership. Why should we blame media? We should start protest against this uncontrolled yellow journalism. We all how the Indian media handled the recent case of teenage girls murder in Delhi. They molested even her character and soul.

Yesterday there was news about how the blue chip company employee was molested by 10 people. What a team effort!!! We can’t produce enough Olympics medals in team games (or any event) but here we will be among the best!!! Is this the same country where the women is considered as Shakthi and worshipped? Why this conflict? Has the human race degenerated so badly that they have no sense and become animals? How could I compare these demons to poor animals? It will be biggest cruelty from my part.

When you read this you might not know the seriousness of the situation.

Law should be amended so that death punishment could be given to these criminals. They are not fit to considered humans. They should be stoned to death or hanged or whatever may be punishment but they should be eliminated. My sisters and mothers don’t think that all are like these demons. There are humans also in the male gender. I feel so helpless when I hear these tragic stories which the creator of life of earth, the most wonderful creation of God has to undergo everyday.

Women must find the courage to report the rape. They must find support from their families and friends to deal with the stress, anger, and fear they experience. Most of all, women must never feel guilty or blame themselves. For there is no need to accept shame or blame for a crime committed by another.

Facts

Rape is the fastest growing crime in the country, according to data for 2006 released by the home ministry’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) recently. A rape is being reported every 30 minutes, an alarming increase of nearly 700% since 1971 when the NCRB started recording them.

These figures are revealed even as reports of sexual crimes, including those against foreign tourists, come in from different parts of the country.

Every hour, 18 women become victims of crime directed specifically at them — rape, kidnapping and abduction, dowry-related crimes, molestation, sexual harassment, eve-teasing, etc. Rape has grown from seven cases a day in 1971 to 53 in 2006. In comparison, all other crimes have grown by 300% since 1953 when the NCRB started keeping records.

What is alarming is that the offenders were known to their victims in 75.1% of rape cases (14,536 out of 19,348). Parents/close family members were involved in 3% of cases (431 out of 14,536), neighbours in 36.8% of cases (5,351 out of 14,536) and relatives in 7.6% of cases (1,106 out of 14,536).

According to the NCRB data, among 35 cities with a population of over 1 million, Delhi topped the list of crimes against women, with 4,134 cases (nearly one-fifth of the total number of crimes against women). One-third of all rapes and a fifth of molestation cases took place in the city. Hyderabad was the second most dangerous city for women, with 1,755 cases.

Among the states, Andhra Pradesh recorded the highest number of crimes against women — 21,484 cases, or 13% of the total number of cases in 2006. Uttar Pradesh was a close second, with 9.9% of such crimes. Madhya Pradesh reported the highest number of rape cases, at 2,900, and also molestation cases.

Records reveal that 7,618 women were killed for dowry in 2006, an increase of 12.2% over 2005. Uttar Pradesh, with 1,798 cases, had the highest number of such deaths, followed by Bihar with 1,188 cases.

And these are just the cases that have been reported; the number of unreported cases may be much higher.

Links
http://www.endesastres.org/files/ENGLISH_Rape_Prevention__CONCID_.pdf

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The dark story of war – mass rape

I was proud of India army with its discipline and moral behaviors. But recently there were allegations against them in Congo. (The United Nations has accused the Indian Army troops of sexual exploitation, including child abuse, while on peacekeeping duty in Congo. http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/14/stories/2008081459661200.htm) Then I heard about the some more dark side of the war which I have heard many times but didn’t notice much. The dark story was always in dark waiting for the world to accept the brutality of war and its consequences.

The world is at war everyday. The number games of dead, wounded or seriously injured is familiar to us. In this epic story of hide and seek, victory and defeat, life and death there are many hidden plots and tactics which never surfaces. The most successful and brutal of these is mass rape, the mass humiliation of human race. No body notices these state (not only state all the parties in a war) sponsored terror. If we look at the history of all the aggression we can find many such untold grime stories of death and shame.

The biggest mass attack on the women’s dignity which I knew was that of Pakistan’s army in 1971. When they raped around 2,00,000 Bangladeshi (East Pakistan at that time) women. But then it still repeated in Congo, Sudan, Bosnia and all those known and unknown places in much larger scale.

Gita Sahgal, of Amnesty International – “Rape is often used in ethnic conflicts as a way for attackers to perpetuate their social control and redraw ethnic boundaries””Women are seen as the reproducers and carers of the community,” she said. “Therefore if one group wants to control another they often do it by impregnating women of the other community because they see it as a way of destroying the opposing community.”

The same tactic was used in a “very strategic attack” by state-backed Pakistani troops during the fight for Bangladesh‘s independence in 1971, Ms Sahgal said.

“They were saying ‘we will make you breed Punjabi children’,” she said, with the aim of weakening the integrity of the opposing ethnic group.

History

The Hebrew Scriptures describes the rape of the women of conquered tribes as a routine act. Foreign woman were often kidnapped as spoils of war, and forced to marry their captors/rapists. This was probably typical behavior in the Middle East during that era. In ancient times, rape was considered to be a crime against the victim’s father or spouse — whoever owned her. “The ancient Greeks and Romans would rape and enslave women after they had conquered a city.”

In Nanjing, China, during 1937 & 1938, Japanese soldiers were responsible for massive levels of rape among the local Chinese population. There were “over 20,000 rape victims…when the soldiers themselves were not raping the Chinese women, they took great pleasure in forcing fathers to rape their daughters and sons to rape their mothers.“

Millions of women victims raped by Russian soldiers during the last months of World War II. Anthony Beevor’s book “Berlin — The Downfall 1945” documents rape by Russian soldiers. “Beevor’s conclusions are that in response to the vast scale of casualties inflicted on them by the Germans the Soviets responded in kind, and that included rape on a vast scale. It started as soon as the Red Army entered East Prussia and Silesia in 1944, and in many towns and villages every female aged from 10 to 80 was raped.“

Random rape by soldiers during wartime has been a common phenomenon, particularly when there has been a lack of army discipline. “From [recent] conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina to Peru to Rwanda, girls and women have been singled out for rape, imprisonment, torture and execution. Rape, identified by psychologists as the most intrusive of traumatic events, has been documented in many armed conflicts including those in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Cyprus, Haiti, Liberia, Somalia and Uganda.“

Author Maria B. Olujic – “Rape was a weapon of terror as the German Hun marched through Belgium in World War I; gang rape was part of the orchestrated riots of Kristallnacht which marked the beginning of Nazi campaigns against the Jews. It was a weapon of revenge as the Russian Army marched to Berlin in World War II, it was used when the Japanese raped Chinese women in the city of Nanking, when the Pakistani Army battled Bangladesh, and when the American G.I.s made rape in Vietnam a ‘standard operating procedure aimed at terrorizing the population into submission’.”

I can’t write much more about these. This is a real horror much bigger than the holocaust or anything heard of till now. This is the worst punishment. And this is happening almost everyday. We the “cultured” human society are not doing anything to prevent this? Animals are far better than us.

Hey warlords, please spare our sisters and mothers. Fight with dignity like real men.

LINKS:

1. The Greatest Mass Rape in History: http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:oRzuO9ARMccJ:library.flawlesslogic.com/massrape.htm&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=in&client=firefox-a
2. U.N.: Brutality against women in Congo ‘beyond rape’: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/07/30/congo.rape.reut/index.html
3. Japan‘s Mass Rape and Sexual Enslavement of Women and Girls: http://www.cmht.com/cases_cwcomfort2.php
4. “Not Women Anymore…” The Congo’s rape survivors face pain, shame and AIDS http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2005/congo.asp
5. The silent story of Bosnia: http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/rape/rape.html
6. Democratic Republic of Congo: Mass rape – time for remedies: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR62/018/2004/en/dom-AFR620182004en.html
7. Human Rights Watch/Africa : SHATTERED LIVES:Sexual Violence during the Rwandan Genocide and its Aftermath http://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/Rwanda.htm
8. “News from Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues, Inc.,” at: http://witness.peacenet.or.kr/e_comfort/newsletter/wccw.htm
9. Heather A. Blackburn and Stacey M. Thomas, “Rape Warfare,” 1998-FEB-25, at: http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/Research/
10. “Sexual violence as a weapon of war,” UNICEF, at: http://www.unicef.org/sowc96pk/sexviol.htm
11. Maria B. Olujic, “Women, Rape, and War: The Continued Trauma of Refugees and Displaced Persons in Croatia,” Anthropology of East Europe Review, Volume 13, No. 1 Spring, 1995; Special Issue: Refugee Women of the Balkans
12. “Nanjing Massacre: A Retrospective,” at: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccba/
13. John Baird, “Rape of Nanking: Remembering the horrors of World War II,” at: http://www.wpi.edu/News/TechNews/article.php?id=210
14. Peter Almond, “Feature: Book on WW II rapes upsets Russia,” at: http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6043-11.cfm
15. Anthony Beevor, “Berlin — The Downfall 1945,” Viking, 2002.
16. Dahlia Gilboa, “Mass Rape: War on Women,” at: http://www.scrippscol.edu/~home/
17. Valerie Oosterveld, “When women are the spoils of war,” UNESCO, at: http://www.unesco.org/courier/1998_08/uk/ethique/txt1.htm
18. “International Law Relating to Rape in Armed Conflict,” http://www.alliancesforafrica.org/
19. “Rape in Times of Conflict and War: A resolution from the General Board of Global Ministries approved by the 1996 General Conference of The United Methodist Church,” at: http://gbgm-umc.org/mission/resolutions/rapewar.html
20. From: Stefan Blaschke, “History of Rape: A Bibliography,” at: http://www.geocities.com/history_guide/horb/horb-t08.html

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