India Increase in Wife Sharing in Villages another sign showing need to save Girl Child

India Increase in Wife Sharing in Villages another sign showing need to save Girl Child



BAGHPAT, India –

When Munni arrived in this fertile, sugarcane-growing region of north India as a young bride years ago, little did she imagine she would be forced into having sex and bearing children with her husband's two brothers who had failed to find wives.

"My husband and his parents said I had to share myself with his brothers," said the woman in her mid-40s, dressed in a yellow sari, sitting in a village community centre in Baghpat district in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

"They took me whenever they wanted -- day or night. When I resisted, they beat me with anything at hand," said Munni, who had managed to leave her home after three months only on the pretext of visiting a doctor.

"Sometimes they threw me out and made me sleep outside or they poured kerosene over me and burned me."

Such cases are rarely reported to police because women in these communities are seldom allowed outside the home unaccompanied, and the crimes carry deep stigma for the victims. So there may be many more women like Munni in the mud-hut villages of the area.

Munni, who has three sons from her husband and his brothers, has not filed a police complaint either.

From Olden times Indian families prefer the boy over girl and today also its same families want a boy not a girl.

Result is less and less girls and more boys , few villages have already because the villages where there is no female in a village.

In India in cities few families give equal rights to girl child but in cities also parents prefer a boy over girl and boy has no restrictions but they got many restrictions for the girls.
In cities girls get freedom but in villages like this females cover their complete body in presence of males, they are not allowed to go outside alone or confined within their home and are just considered as child giving machine who can cook for the family.

On other side village males enjoy everything.

According to India's 2011 census, there are only 858 women to every 1,000 men in Baghpat district, compared to the national sex ratio of 940.

"In every village, there are at least five or six bachelors who can't find a wife. In some, there are up to three or four unmarried men in one family. It's a serious problem," says Shri Chand, 75, a retired police constable.

"Everything is hush, hush. No one openly admits it, but we all know what is going on. Some families buy brides from other parts of the country, while others have one daughter-in-law living with many unwedded brothers."

Women from other regions such as the states of Jharkhand and West Bengal speak of how their poor families were paid sums of as little as 15,000 rupees ($300) by middle-men and brought here to wed into a different culture, language and way of life.

"It was hard at first, there was so much to learn and I didn't understand anything. I thought I was here to play," said Sabita Singh, 25, who was brought from a village in West Bengal at the age of 14 to marry her husband, 19 years her elder.

"I've got used to it," she says holding her third child in her lap. "I miss my freedom."

Such exploitation of women is illegal in India, but many of these crimes are gradually becoming acceptable among such close-knit communities because the victims are afraid to speak out and neighbours unwilling to interfere.


UNABATED ABORTIONS

Despite laws making pre-natal gender tests illegal, India's 2011 census indicated that efforts to curb female foeticide have been futile.

A May study in the British medical journal Lancet found that up to 12 million Indian girls were aborted over the last three decades -- resulting in a skewed child sex ratio of 914 girls to every 1,000 boys in 2011 compared with 962 in 1981.

Daughters are seen as a liability, for whom families have to pay substantial wedding dowries. Protecting their chastity is a major concern as instances of pre-marital sex are seen to bring shame and dishonour on families.

To Solve this problem again India needs to reform our laws and make them very strict so strict that a doctor should wet his pants if he thinks about aborting that is murdering a girl child.

Doctors who abort girl child a healthy girl child on the request on parents who want a boy should be hanged and everyone should be charged for the murder of a girl child.

Today nothing happens, laws are on paper, criminals get caught they get the bail
and start to live their lives happily just like nothing happened without any fear of future punishment.

Punishment should be such that if criminal is found he should forget his sleep day and night punishment should haunt him follow him everywhere.


Reality views by sm –

Friday, October 28, 2011

Tags – India Girl Child Wife Sharing Brothers Homes

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"Wife-sharing" haunts Indian villages as girls decline

http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/news/wife-sharing-haunts-indian-villages-as-girls-decline/