Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Bangladeshi Women & Dowries

From IOL News:
Farzana Yasmin sought a divorce just hours after her wedding when her new husband's family demanded dowry payments.

Despite the stigma of divorce in Bangladesh, she is not worried about her future.

She wants other women to be brave enough to maintain their dignity in the face of dowry demands that have destroyed the happiness of millions of women in the Muslim-majority South Asian country, and led to numerous deaths.

Violence related to dowries has resulted in the deaths of more than 2 000 women in Bangladesh in the last decade.

The government outlawed the practice over 30 years ago, but it persists and is still taking a heavy toll.

In the first nine months of 2011, dowry-related violence caused the deaths of 268 women compared to 137 the previous year, according to Bangladesh Mahila Parishad women's rights organisation, based on monitoring of media reports.

No comments: