NEW DELHI – A woman in India has been filmed being beaten by her in-laws for giving birth to a girl, a major issue in rural India.
The shocking clip, taken from the top of a flight of stairs, shows the woman screaming as she is lashed with hockey sticks from the front and back by her brother-in-law and one of his friends.
https://youtu.be/8Vru5kT3dVw
The victim, 35-year-old Meena Kashyap is said to be in dispute over the dowry she received at the time of her marriage, but then when she gave birth to a girl her husband’s family were further angered.
According to Hindustan Times, she has been beaten a number of times.
The victim’s father told local news outlets: ‘We had complained about the issue last year but nothing was being done regarding that.
“They have been married for the past two years now and have a girl child. Their family asked for 700,000 rupees for dowry.”
The issue of dowry, which has long been a controversial issue in rural India, has also become a hot topic since the video surfaced. The video went viral after it was posted on social media.
The deep-seated cultural preference for sons has skewed India’s 1.2 billion population’s gender demographic, particularly in the western states of Haryana, Rajasthan, and Punjab.
In a 2011 study, British medical journal Lancet found that up to 12 million Indian female foetuses had been aborted in the previous three decades.
In 2014, the United Nations said the dwindling number of Indian girls had reached “emergency proportions” and was contributing to crimes against women.
