The giver, the provider, the divine, the compassionate, warm, the one who can convert a house into a home- all these some things women are synonyms with. One wonders whether women have any rights amid a state of laws and statute books. But what do we see in practice? Women are treated a class apart. And who is guilty? Who is not? The entire society which includes man and woman. The then President of India Gian Zail Singh suggested action against mother-in-law for the perpetuation of the crime of dowry. Are women not the willing partners in the crime of foeticide and infanticide? Who ever be the guilty, the women in India is paying a price for being a women. And this price she pays even before she is born and even as she reaches the twilight zone. she carries the cross right from the cradle lucky if she reaches it till she reaches the grave.All this gross injustice despite several laws that we enacted from time to time.Laws a plenty but no justice.
Female foeticide is one of the primary causes of the declining child sex ratio, from 0 to 6 in our country. There are clinic golare in the cities across the country to determine the sex of the child yet to be born. Not all parents can afford amniocentesis or other costly tests so some of the poor women in certain parts of Tamil Nadu,Bihar and Rajasthan go in for crude methods of killing female babies as soon as they are born. The poor justify infanticide on the plea that they cannot builds up a dowry to get the child married.
And married children do not even reach their adolescence the normal way as the parents get them married even as they, still remain toddles or just baby boys and girls. Long back a lone women in Rajasthan , a sathin campaign against child marriage in her village was gang raped.
The women in India can never take off her crown of thorn. Marriage is a solemn ceremony. But it is a night-mare for many parents who have daughters to get married. One can't guess how many innocent lives have been sacrificed at this altar of dowry: How many suicides and homicides, none can tell. One or two girls in Delhi or Tamil Nadu walk out of these marriage before they are solemnized. But the devil still stalks the women. Despite Law. Despite Punishment. Despite Seminars on dowry. Despite the law being made more stringent. Despite education. Despite several court rulings. Apart from dowry deaths, many incidents of torture by husband or in laws are also reported.
Sexual harassment ? It does not begin at the work place. It begins early when the child is sexually abused by someone known to her. And as she grows, she no longer feels safe anywhere.
Then where is women safe? Nowhere either in the home or outside. Neither During the day and the night. The other day a girl was raped while returning to home from office in Delhi.Death penalty has not brought down the incidence of heinous crime of murder and rape.
We talk indignantly of the denial of human rights to different sections of the people in our country. But do our women who constitute nearly half of our population enjoy basic human rights?
The women in India can never take off her crown of thorn. Marriage is a solemn ceremony. But it is a night-mare for many parents who have daughters to get married. One can't guess how many innocent lives have been sacrificed at this altar of dowry: How many suicides and homicides, none can tell. One or two girls in Delhi or Tamil Nadu walk out of these marriage before they are solemnized. But the devil still stalks the women. Despite Law. Despite Punishment. Despite Seminars on dowry. Despite the law being made more stringent. Despite education. Despite several court rulings. Apart from dowry deaths, many incidents of torture by husband or in laws are also reported.
Then where is women safe? Nowhere either in the home or outside. Neither During the day and the night. The other day a girl was raped while returning to home from office in Delhi.Death penalty has not brought down the incidence of heinous crime of murder and rape.
