Friday, May 16, 2008

Indian village proud after double "honor killing" - Yahoo! News

Indian village proud after double "honor killing" - Yahoo! News:
"THE POWER OF UPPER CASTE MEN

The relatively prosperous northern state of Haryana is one of India's most conservative when it comes to caste, marriage and the role of women. Deeply patriarchal, caste purity is paramount and marriages are arranged to sustain the status quo.

Men and women are still murdered across the villages of northern India for daring to marry outside their caste, but in Haryana the practice is widespread, and widely supported.

Here, women veil their faces with scarves in public. The illegal abortion of female fetuses is common, the ratio of women to men in Haryana just 861 to 1,000, the lowest in the country.

Anyone who transgresses social codes, by marrying across caste boundaries or within the same village, is liable to meet the same fate as Sunita and Jasbir.

Many such murders are never reported, hardly any result in prosecution, says Professor Javeed Alam, chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research."

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for blogging about this, Siobhan.

    It's difficult to understand how an entire village can find a double dishonor killing copacetic.

    Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
    "Reclaiming Honor in Jordan"

    ReplyDelete