WORTHLESS DAUGHTERS

“People don’t want daughters because they are not helpful to the family -· they leave the family when they marry. Daughters are useless! Unworthy! It is sons who are able to inherit assets…”·

Gender Discrimination Plagues India and the Far East

Female infanticide. Lack of education. Overwork. Domestic abuse. Dowry murders. Skewed male-to-female population ratios. Higher child mortality rates for girls due to neglect and malnutrition. Female feoticide (abortion) based on ultrasound accessibility…

What do all these point to?
Discrimination against women and girls.

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MEET MITU KHURANA

“The life of a female has no value, but the sham of the family must be maintained at all costs.”
Dr. Mitu Khurana · entered into a marital nightmare when she married in 2004.

On the third day after her marriage, her mother in-law told her that the family never liked her, but that they agreed to the match as a compromise – the compromise was because of her husband’s increasing age, according to her mother in-law.

Mitu was kept under total house arrest, apart from her work at the hospital. She couldn’t even go to the local market after work. Her husband ignored her, and if he did talk, it was usually to shout at her. Both husband and mother-in-law verbally abused her, in addition to dowry demands made by her mother in-law.

“Whenever my husband used to abuse me , my mother in law would tell me that I should silently listen to all abuses because I was a woman, and in their house, women don’t speak”

In 2005, she became pregnant. Her husband and mother in-law increased their verbal· and physical abuse upon her.· Though she· was on complete bed rest as advised by doctors due to threatened abortion, she was expected to do all the household work, as there was no servant in the house.

Then in her 6th week of pregnancy, her in-laws fed her egg-laden cake, knowing she was allergic to egg. She fell ill and was taken to a hospital, against her wishes to be treated at home.· There at the hospital, the doctor advised a K.U.B. (kidney, ureter, bladder) ultrasound, but the report barely mentions K.U.B, and instead mentions fetal ultrasound. Husband and mother in-law were present to discover the sex of the fetuses.

Mitu was carrying twin daughters.

According to Mitu her mother in-law repeatedly asked that at least one child be killed in-utero.
After their birth, Mitu tried to return to her in-law’s house, where the abuse toward her continued.
“I had no help in looking after children. There was no love or respect for children or me. I was not even sure my children and I would be safe there. My mother in law deliberately pushed down my 4-month-old daughter from the staircase and pretended it was an accident. Fortunately I was able to hold her carrying cot and save her harm. They never showed any love or affection towards them. Their grandparents & aunts have rejected them totally.”

Today, thanks to Mitu’s parents who stand by her and with whom she and her daughters live, her girls are happy and doing well in school. But they are aware of the tensions that plague their mother.

Illegal Ultra-Sound

Mitu is the first woman in India to file a case under· the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, in which it is illegal to use ultrasound for sex-determination. However, as with all her complaints, delays such as repeated adjournments, delays at the police level, and no interim protection orders, have held her cases in limbo.

The judiciary system is indifferent to Mitu; first her in-laws harassed her, then police and government agencies, now the judiciary – all of whom side with her husband, ask her to withdraw her cases, and accuse her of being selfish, of only wanting to harass her in-laws and bring publicity for her own ego.

What Mitu wants most is her daughters’ safety, and is asking people worldwide through petitions to help protect them from their abusive father.

To bring awareness to the judiciary system that he is a threat to their safety as long as he has not been convicted. In their eyes, the father has the natural right to visit them, even if he previously tried to kill them.

Full Article: Worthless Daughters