Bride burning

:"This article is about the practice of a form of domestic violence. For the American hard rock band, see 'Burning Brides'."Bride-burning is a form of domestic violence practiced in parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries located on or around the Indian subcontinent. In bride-burning cases it is alleged that a man, or his family, douses his wife with kerosene, gasoline, or other flammable liquid, and sets the woman alight, leading to death by fire. [cite web
url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/3071963.stm
title=India's dowry deaths
last=Ash
first=Lucy
publisher=BBC
date=2003-07-16
accessdate=2007-07-30]

Virendra Kumar and Sarita Kanth point out that bride burning has been recognized as an important public health problem in India.Kumar, Virendra, and Sarita Kanth, 'Bride burning' in "The Lancet" Vol. 364, pp s18-s19.] They say that it is a historical and cultural issue accounting for around 600-750 deaths per year in India alone. Bride burning, a category of dowry death, occurs when a young woman is murdered by her husband or his family for her family's refusal to pay additional dowry. In 1995 Time Magazine reported that dowry deaths in India increased from around 400 a year in the early 1980s to around 5,800 a year by the middle of the 1990s. Pratap, Anita, "Time Magazine", September 11, 1995 Volume 146, No. 11] A year later CNN ran a story saying that every year police receive more than 2,500 reports of bride burning.cite web
url=http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,100748,00.html
title=Indian Society Needs To Change
last=Yasui
first=Brian
publisher=CNN
date=1996-08-18
accessdate=2007-08-24]

Bride burning in South Asia

In India

Ashley K. Jutla MD, and Dr. David Heimbach MD, describe bride burning by saying that "the husband and/or in-laws have determined that the dowry, a gift given from the daughter's parents to the husband, was inadequate and therefore attempt to murder the new bride to make the husband available to remarry or to punish the bride and her family." ["Love Burns: An Essay about Bride Burning in India" in Journal of Burn Care & Rehabilitation. 25(2):165-170, March/April 2004.]

In 1961, the Government of India passed the Dowry Prohibition Act, making the dowry demands in wedding arrangements illegal.cite web
title=The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961
url=http://www.wcd.nic.in/dowryprohibitionact.htm
accessdate=2006-12-24]

In 1986, the Indian Parliament added "dowry deaths" as a new domestic violence crime. According to the new section 304-B of the Indian Penal Code, where a bride, "within 7 years of her marriage is killed and it is shown that soon before her death, she was subjected to cruelty or harassment by her husband, or any relative of her husband. or in connection with any demand for dowry, such death shall be called 'dowry death' and such husband or relative shall be deemed to have caused her death."

The offenders can be sentenced for any period from a minimum of 7 years in prison to a maximum of life. [Deller-Ross, Susan. "Legal Framework Surrounding Domestic Violence." (explaining section 304-B of the Indian Penal Code) ] However, many cases of dowry-related domestic violence, suicides and murders have been reported. A 1997 report claimed that at least 5,000 women die each year because of dowry deaths, and at least a dozen die each day in 'kitchen fires' thought to be intentional. ["Kitchen fires Kill Indian Brides with Inadequate Dowry", July 23, 1997, New Delhi, UPI]

Suggestions to prevent bride burning are being developed, including: "an increase in the standard of education for women, which will encourage economic and emotional independence; proper implementation of existing laws along with new, stricter legislation to abolish dowry related crimes; and the establishment of voluntary associations to decrease the importance of dowries in general. Community-level programs are essential, and must include doctors, who bear special responsibilities to help change the social milieu in which this phenomenon occurs.”

In Pakistan

Cases of bride burning have been reported in Pakistan.cite web
title=Pakistan: No Progress on Women's Rights (ASA 33/13/98)
url=http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA330131998?open&of=ENG-PAK
publisher=Amnesty International
date=1998-09-01
accessdate=2006-12-29] The Ansar Burney Trust International says that in some cases, accidents are engineered (such as tampering with a kitchen stove to cause victim's death) or the victims are set ablaze, and the attack is disguised as an accident or as suicide.cite web
title=Women's Rights - Our Struggle to fight for the rights of women
url=http://www.ansarburney.org/womens_rights.html
accessdate=2006-12-29
publisher=Ansar Burney Trust] According to an Amnesty International report in 1999, though 1,600 "bride-burning" were reported, sixty were prosecuted but only two resulted in convictions.cite web
title=Honour killings of girls and women (ASA 33/018/1999)
url=http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engASA330181999
publisher=Amnesty International
date=1999-09-01
accessdate=2006-12-29]

Activism

In Pakistan, women including Shahnaz Bukhari, the chief coordinator of the Progressive Women’s Association, have been campaigning for protective legislations, women’s shelters and hospitals with specialized burn wards. [cite news
url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3097469.stm
title=Acid attack victim demands justice
last=Ali
first=Sahar
publisher=BBC
date=2003-07-28
accessdate=2007-07-30] Although the government of Pakistan has rejected any legal prohibition against dowry and "honor" killings, there are indications that pressure from within, as well as from international human rights groups may be increasing the level of awareness within the Pakistani government. ['Pakistan: Honour killings of girls and women' in Amnesty International Report 1999, (London: September 1999)]

See also

* Sati
* Female infanticide
* Dowry
* Women in India and Women in Pakistan & Women in Bangladesh
* Eve teasing
* Honor killing
* Watta satta
* Fire (1996 film). a Canadian-Indian movie with bride-burning as one of the themes

References

Further reading

*"South Asians and the Dowry Problem" (Group on Ethnic Minority Studies (Gems), No. 6, ed. by Werner Menski (Trentham Books, 1999)

External links

* [http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=61245 A man willfully charged of burning to death a women who turned up alive]
* [http://web.amnesty.org/actforwomen/index-eng Amnesty International's "Stop Violence Against Women" Campaign]
* [http://ncrb.nic.in/crime2003/cii.html India's National Crime Records Bureau]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/3071963.stm India's dowry deaths, BBC]
* [http://www.pariwariksuraksha.org Anti-dowry laws India]
* [http://www.indiatogether.org/women/dowry/ India Together - Dowry Section]
* [http://www.un.org.pk/library/Women_Biblio/wbabs.htm UN Common Library - Annotated Bibliography of Women's Issues in Pakistan]
* [http://www.idontwantdowry.com Matrimonial website for the people who oppose dowry system]
* [http://www.pegasus.rutgers.edu/~rcrlj/articlespdf/lakhani.pdf Bride-Burning: The "Elephant in the Room” is out of Control'] by Avnita Lakhani in "Rutgers Conflict Resolution Law Journal"
* [http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1096463 Woman beats and burns her husband in India]
* [http://www.cooljodi.com India bride]