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For years, women all over the world have been denied their rights, looked
down upon, and taken advantage of. Combine that with the discrimination
against teenagers, and you’ve got yourself a true problem. In America, we
commonly see violent acts against teenage girls in situations of domestic
violence or relationship abuse. The American government is doing all it
can to stop the public from making young women targets, especially in
recent years, providing shelters, doctors, and even entire hospital
clinics around the nation. But in certain foreign countries, the
government is doing little to none in terms of preventing their future
wives and mothers from being taken advantage of. In India, women are being
brutally beaten, forced into brothels, and even set on fire by their own
husbands—and even worse, the women are as young as 12 years old.
Indian tradition declares that men are more valuable; hence the desire
of a baby girl is minimal to none in an Indian society. The reason for
this philosophy is all based on an ancient tradition--a dowry. A dowry is
the amount of money the bride's family pays to the groom in the event that
their daughter gets married. The dowry doesn't only need to consist of
money, it can also include livestock, technology items, and other
miscellaneous objects that the groom may request of the bride's parents.
If the dowry isn't to the groom and his family's liking, the bride can be
beaten or even set on fire, usually by the husband. This practice is
called “bride burning” and is the most severe case of dowry abuse.
Government records of these situations are low because in most cases they
are reported as accidents or suicides. As a result, millions of murdered
teenage girls are uncounted in federal Indian documents because no one is
truly speaking up for these young women encountering violence and
humiliation on a daily basis.
The discrimination of women in India is mostly based upon the fact
that families, especially families in rural Indian towns, simply cannot
afford paying a dowry when their daughter eventually marries. They would
rather favor their money and lifestyle than their own daughter, causing
many women to be forced into having an abortion. With ultrasound scanning
devices just recently appearing on the Indian market, mothers can know
whether they are carrying a boy or a girl while still in the womb.
Advertisements for ultrasounds in India include catch phrases for saving
money such as “Spend 600 rupees now and save 50,000 rupees later.”
When young girls are carrying babies, their older “husbands” are
usually the ones who decide whether to keep the baby or have an abortion.
Despite this being a completely biased and unfair process of decision
making, the woman can also be physically hurt or even die if the husband
isn’t willing to get a real medical abortion and goes to the much
frequented “Spiritual Doctor”, a common practice in rural India where
money is scarce. This is a medical danger because not only is the abortion
not preformed in a hospital or a properly equipped clinic, but also the
devices used are outdated, harmful, and usually not sterile.
Adding to this atrocious lack of respect towards Indian women are the
men that entice or trick young girls into joining brothels, usually
husbands or close relatives of the teenagers. Australia's Minister for
Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Senator Amanda Vanstone describes
that the young girls “...have survived major trauma—some have been
raped…and they are thrust unto an urban environment totally different from
the mainly rural background they have come from.”
Men who take advantage of these young, unsuspecting
girls are also ignorant of the damage they are bringing upon the future generation of
their country. For example, when a 12 year old girl from a rural village
on the outskirts of Varanasi told someone she was raped, the village
council repeatedly shot down her claim and wouldn’t believe her, instead
saying that she made the “story” up. A neighbor, insisting he was offering
to help her by getting her a job in the field of domestic work in the city
of Kolkata, then took her to Dehli and sold her to a brothel for 10,000
rupees. This sad situation is one of many in the truly terrorizing world
of teenage abuse in the land of India. In fact, statistics recorded in
2000 state that a woman is raped almost every hour in India, on average.
India's Deputy Chair of the Rajya Sabha, Najma Heptullah, spoke at a
Harvard seminar in 1998 about this growing problem, adding that the Indian
parliament system is “…closed and male-dominated…” This explains a lot
about the lack of progress made in this very serious situation, and the
unserious attitude the parliament members have towards these atrocious
acts of violence.
So what is being done about the lack of rights and respect for the
young women of India? Well for the most part, the effort has come in baby
steps. Vanstone, a supporter of the UNHCR's Refugee Women's Protection
Clinic in West Delhi, stated that in order to first help the teenage girls
of India they must create shelters and ‘safe havens’, such as the ones
provided in America, to “… get an idea of the full spectrum of the
problems they face, and find out how we can get them better protection and
find long term solutions” in order to get the job done.
Sources:
IndianChild.com,
UNHCR.org,
Harvard University,
IndianTogether.org |
