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'Bride-burning' is a term used to describe 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.^[1]
Virendra Kumar and Sarita Kanth, point out that Bride burning has been recognized as an important public health problem in India.^[2] They say that it is a historical and cultural issue accounting for around 600-750 deaths per year in India alone. Bride burning, also called dowry death, occurs when a bride is murdered by her groom or his family for refusing to pay additional dowry. Time magazine has reported that "as many as 25,000 brides are brutally killed each year because of disputes over dowries." Indian Society Needs To Change In 1996 CNN ran a story saying that every year police receive more than 2,500 reports of bride burning. Indian Society Needs To Change

Contents

Bride burning in South Asia

In India

In Pakistan

Activism

References

Further reading

See also

External links

Bride burning in South Asia

In India

Dr. Rajni 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."^[3]
In 1961, the Government of India passed the Dowry Prohibition Act, making the dowry demands in wedding arrangements illegal.^[4] 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.^[5]
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.^[6] 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.^[7] According to an Amnesty International report in 1999, though 1,600 "bride-burning" were reported, sixty were prosecuted but only two resulted in convictions.^[8].

Activism

Karnataka Forum for Dignity poster in Bangalore, India

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.^[9] 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.^[10]

References

1. India's dowry deaths
2. Kumar, Virendra, and Sarita Kanth, 'Bride burning' in ''The Lancet'' Vol. 364, pp s18-s19.
3. ''Love Burns: An Essay about Bride Burning in India'' in Journal of Burn Care & Rehabilitation. 25(2):165-170, March/April 2004.
4. The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961
5. ''Kitchen fires Kill Indian Brides with Inadequate Dowry'', July 23, 1997, New Delhi, UPI
6. Pakistan: No Progress on Women's Rights (ASA 33/13/98)
7. Women's Rights - Our Struggle to fight for the rights of women
8. Honour killings of girls and women (ASA 33/018/1999)
9. Acid attack victim demands justice Sahar Ali
10. 'Pakistan: Honour killings of girls and women' in Amnesty International Report 1999, (London: September 1999)

Further reading

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

See also

★ Sati

★ Female infanticide

★ Dowry

★ Women in India and Women in Pakistan

★ Eve teasing

★ Honor killing

★ Watta satta

★ Fire (film) a Canadian-Indian movie with bride-burning as one of the themes

External links

★ A man willfully charged of burning to death a women who turned up alive

★ Amnesty International's "Stop Violence Against Women" Campaign

★ India's National Crime Records Bureau

★ India's dowry deaths, BBC

★ Anti-dowry laws India

★ India Together - Dowry Section

★ UN Common Library - Annotated Bibliography of Women's Issues in Pakistan

★ Matrimonial website for the people who oppose dowry system

★ Bride-Burning: The "Elephant in the Room” is out of Control' by Avnita Lakhani in ''Rutgers Conflict Resolution Law Journal''