There is only one solution to all these. Education!

Koba (Gandhinagar), July 28: For every celebrated token of women’s empowerment like the first female President and every Kiran Bedi who complains of being passed over, there’s a Sunita and a Kajal in Mother India’s son-struck, conveyor-belt child factories.

Sunita Rajput, 27, has alleged she was forced by her husband to have six abortions in nine years of marriage because each time she had conceived a girl.

In between the abortions, the mother of two girls from Vadodara says, husband Rajesh would drive nails into her earlobes, starve her and beat her.

The man apparently didn’t spare even his “second wife”, 22-year-old Kajal, whom he married 14 months ago by pretending to be single because he desperately wanted a boy.

When Kajal delivered a girl 40 days ago — the recent “save the girl” campaign had made foetal sex tests riskier — Rajesh punished her, too.

“He made me drink his urine twice,” said Kajal.

The torture didn’t end for Sunita, though.

“When I refused to get a seventh abortion (she’s seven months pregnant), he tried to do it himself by kicking me in the stomach,” Sunita said at the Kasturba Gandhi Trust here, where she and Kajal arrived with their daughters four days ago after slipping out of their home in Padra near Vadodara, 160 km away.

Their story is the latest in a series of domestic-torture tales pouring out of Gujarat’s underbelly since Pooja Chauhan, 22, decided to walk the streets of Rajkot in her underwear on July 5 to protest harassment by her husband and in-laws.

Unlike 26-year-old Riya Lodhia, “inspired” by that act to fight back six years after her in-laws threw her out, Sunita and Kajal haven’t heard of Pooja.

Nor even of her namesake, Pooja Salot, 32, who has filed a complaint after being forced to abort two female foetuses in 11 years of marriage.

Unlike Salot, Sunita has no medical proof of her abortions. Doctors said it’s possible for a woman to conceive in about three months after an abortion, which are usually done within 10 or 12 weeks of pregnancy.

“Repeated abortions can lead to injury to the uterus, menstrual disturbances, infections and sometimes infertility,” warned Kanika Jain, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist in Delhi.

Sunita said her first three abortions were carried out after the birth of her elder daughter, who is now seven. The second daughter, now five, escaped because it had got too late for an abortion. But three more abortions followed.

This evening, Rajesh, 32, was arrested with his two brothers, so he could not be contacted. Sunita’s police complaint also names her mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law. Officers said Rajesh, a hakim who sells ayurvedic and herbal medicines on the roadside, “isn’t co-operating”.

“Recently he beat us for two days and denied us food. That’s when we decided to escape,” Kajal said.

An auto-rickshaw driver they met on the way to Vadodara advised them to go to the Kasturba Gandhi Trust, a home for poor women.

“When they arrived, they were too traumatised to say anything. They hadn’t eaten for four days and could barely stand,” said Pratima Pandya of the trust, who plans to petition President Pratibha Patil to ensure that Rajesh is punished.

Sunita had earlier complained to Padra police but they took no action. Even the policemen who came to the trust to record the women’s statements told Sunita her husband had committed no “heinous crime”
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070729/asp/frontpage/story_8120712.asp

Latest on the old lady

Nirguna our FFLV child and women welfare officer has given me the following update, so far no one has come forward, I guess no one is looking at the blog regularly. I hope so and we are eagerly waiting for some help...
ys rupa

The old lady had some strength to speak today. Her name is Koki Haldar. She is from Ranaghat in Nadia district West Bengal. She has been begging at the ghats here in Vrindavan for the last 6 years.
She said she would beg and feed the monkeys.
When we went to pick her up from the Ghat the other day she tried to give us a packet of biscuits to feed the monkeys.

She says she had a lot of money which some people stole from her. She has not realized that her hip and left leg is broken . She is in a lot of pain.
The doctor has said she can be discharged tomorrow and we will have to move her and have a assistant for her..
Rupa --who is going to help me with this. We will have to find someone to be with her and also how much to pay.

She also has TB and is just flesh and bones.

She wants to go back to the ghats she says.

What to do???

No one deserve to die like this!

This old lady was seen lying at the Ghat for 4 days. Hundred of passerby but no one to care. Somehow a devotee informed us. We had her picked up and brought to the hospital. She has a broken hip.
She’s too old and weak to withstand a hip operation- the Doctors advise against it. She also has TB so will be moved to a private room. We do not know her name yet as she is deaf.
She required 2 bottles of blood.
Doctors say she needs to stay at the hospital for at l east 5 days
A wheel chair and perhaps an attendant to take care of her will also be required.

Initial expenses are approx. Rs 14,000. ($350).
That will include Hospital rooms rent, attendant and meals, medicines and blood.

Please if anyone wish to help contact me ASAP: rupa@fflvrindavan.org

Back home, back in Vrindavan

After more than three months of travel to USA, UK and Europe, yesterday I finally made it back to Vrindavan.
Yesterday I went for the Kitchri distribution and a girl (on my right in the photo) came to me crying and very weak, she had heavy fever. I never met her before but I guess she needed someone to help her or at least to console her until our doc came and gave her medicines.
It made me feel so good to be here again and immediately to be able to give some solace...

The summer tour went very well and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who made it a success.
Now we have a lot of work to do, designing and building two schools and a medical center.
It is a very exciting time for us at FFLV, we are doing so much and still there is so much more that we can do. And we will, we are ready for it!
yours
rupa

Thank you!

On behalf of Usha, we wish to extend a warm thank you to Krsnamayi dasi and Sima Gantra
for sponsoring Usha's education for the next three years.

Usha wishes to continue her study, and the parents are supporting her!

I met this girl long ago, she was a regular at our kitchri serving and she has helped us in the school many times, here's photos of her, years ago- first from left.








and a recent photo.

I would love to help her as it is almost unheard of-- parents wishing for their 17 years old daughter to continue her studies, it is a miracle and we wish to support it, as it can be a good example for others to follow.
If anyone wishes to sponsor her further education, please email me asap:
rupa@fflvrindavan.org

The following is the email I received from our office in Vrindavan.

"Usha is 17 yrs old .She has just passed her 12th grade and obtained a first class division. She wants to continue her education but unfortunately her parents can't afford it. However, they too are keen that she does. There are 6 members in their family . Her father is a security guard and her mother is house-wife Usha has an elder brother and two younger sisters. Usha wants to do her B.A. ( Bachelor of Arts ). They have great hope that FFLV will assist them with this - It will help make Usha's future a better one.
Total fees for her College studies for three years is - Rs 15,000. (GBP 200)"

Sarada is doing great!

I have just received this photo of Sarada, as you remember she was close to leaving her body with 4to 5 major diseases all at once.
Now she is superfine!

Cold-blooded murder? No it is much worse!

Cold-blooded murder? Worse, the murderers had the backing of an entire
village and the act was sanctioned by a 'caste panchayat', comprising
village elders. The victims of this honour killing were young Manoj
and Babli of Karnal, Haryana. They were punished by their community
for daring to violate an old taboo of not marrying into the same clan
or gotra. The stricture might have made sense in ancient times when
the size of clans was small, and marrying within the family, so to
speak, might have posed physiological risks for the offspring.

Today, when clans have so expanded in numbers and have surely merged
considerably over the centuries, the gotra stricture makes little
sense. Claiming ancestorship to a dozen or more rishis and who lived
thousands of years ago, matching gotras before a marriage is to engage
in a defunct and irrelevant exercise. Yet, honour killings in India,
Pakistan and Bangladesh - supposedly to protect family face - continue
to terrorise young men and women who might want to exercise choice in
selecting life partners. This is to say nothing of the punishments
meted out in large parts of the region to women, including rape
victims, who are often killed to salvage family honour.

The Supreme Court in a July 2006 ruling on a writ petition filed by a
partner in an inter-caste marriage, termed honour killing an act of
barbarism. It ordered the police across the country to take stern
action against those resorting to violence against men and women who
decide to go in for inter-caste or inter-religious marriages. The
court went on to say that such acts of violence or threats or
harassment were wholly illegal and those who commit them must be
severely punished.

In a democracy, individuals have the right to choose. It is the duty
of the government, through its law-enforcing agencies, to step in
wherever and whenever citizens' rights are violated. However,
deep-rooted superstitions, prejudices, and bias steeped in tradition -
taken out of context and quite defunct - propel ignorant community
leaders and relatives to mete out punishment to 'offenders'.

An effective way to counter the spread of such barbarism is to
urgently create widespread public awareness through education and
entertainment. Schools for children and adults and compulsory
enrolment, along with interactive street theatre and radio jingles
with social messages, could help bring about a transformation. Above
all, women have to be dramatically lifted from their current status as
almost expendable persons in the cultural and economic structures of
society in large swathes of the subcontinent.
TODAY'S EDITORIAL: Barbarian Face
4 Jul 2007, 0055 hrs IST

A long way to go....

Couple killed for same-gotra marriage
3 Jul 2007, 0115 hrs IST,Ramaninder K Bhatia,TIMES NEWS NETWORK

KARNAL: A village in Haryana has claimed credit for a hoary "honour
killing", with three relatives killing a couple for marrying within
the familial gotra.

The village in Kaithal district now wants to felicitate the trio who
were arrested after the bodies of the victims were found a week after
the murder on June 15.

The "caste panchayat" of Karoran Padran Patti village issued the
diktat against Babli and Manoj, who eloped and married in court after
their families protested their union because they belonged to the same
gotra. The two were forced to drink pesticide and thrown alive into
the Hansi Butana canal after their hands and legs were bound. The
bodies surfaced on June 23 following which the Karnal police arrested
Suresh, an elder brother of Babli, and two other relatives — her uncle
Rajinder and cousin Gurdev.

A remorseless Suresh proudly announced that they were forced to take
the drastic step as the lovers had refused to see reason.