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. Â
In 2014, the United Nations said the dwindling number of Indian girls had reached “emergency proportions” and was contributing to crimes against women.Â
