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Author, photographer and gender activist. Founder of The 50 Million Missing Campaign to end female gendercide in India. For more visit the website www.ritabanerji.com
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All posts tagged domestic violence

The Difference in #Domestic #Violence on #Women in #India and in the West

What’s the difference between domestic violence in India and in the west? One big factor is that in India domestic violence against women or even girls is always gang violence. In the west, it is one man beating up on a woman. In India, it is a man and his entire family, his father, mother, brothers and sisters, not just beating up on his wife and abusing her in every way, but eventually when they cannot force any more money out of her parents in form of dowry, they plot and kill her. That’s pre-meditated gang murder! Even the killing of little girls after birth is a gang planning!

Secondly, where families and friends in western countries urge women to get out to safety, in India there is inordinate pressure from family and society on women to remain in the marriage even if they are financially able to get out, because the marriage is viewed as more important than the women’s safety and life! The following letter received by The 50 Million Missing Campaign is not uncommon to most cases of dowry violence and murder in India.

THE 50 MILLION MISSING CAMPAIGN BLOG ON INDIA'S FEMALE GENDERCIDE

The 50 Million Missing Campaign receives many emails from Indian women sharing their problems and asking for advice. Two days ago we received a letter from a young woman, which we found very distressing. The story in this letter is not uncommon and we’ve heard it repeating in too many homes in India. This is why we are publishing this letter (with names and details concealed) with our advice to this young woman and to all women in this situation. Please listen to our advice!

Below is the letter we received from this young woman:

I don’t know what to say. Right now I am seriously very upset and I am not able to think what to do. What decision should I take now? Today my brother-in-law and his wife both have tried to kill me and my husband has also helped them. They have been continuously torturing me…

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by Rita Banerji on February 18, 2014 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Asia, domestic violence, India, patterns, west

Posted by Rita Banerji on February 18, 2014

https://ritabanerjisblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/our-response-to-the-letter-my-husband-and-his-family-tried-to-kill-me/

Hrithik, Don’t Fret, Your Divorce Won’t Destroy India’s Marriage Institution

Dear Hrithik Roshan,

I have received your tear-soaked letter about your impending divorce. It was duly delivered at 6 a.m. on December 14, at my doorstep in both my weekend newspapers. In fact it was in the headlines, on the front page of both newspapers! At first I was irritated. I thought these idiots are copying off each other and just fooling me into paying for two different subscriptions. But then I thought — what if this is a matter of utmost national importance? And so I read your letter slowly and carefully, registering all the critical information it gave, in both newspapers.

I am proud to say that I’m now enlightened. You say (more…)

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by Rita Banerji on December 17, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Divorce, domestic violence, dowry, DV, Hrithik Roshan, India, marital violence, Marriage, rita banerji, VAW, violence

Posted by Rita Banerji on December 17, 2013

https://ritabanerjisblog.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/hrithik-dont-fret-your-divorce-wont-destroy-indias-marriage-institution/

Women as Domestic Appliances and Internalized #Misogyny

THE 50 MILLION MISSING CAMPAIGN BLOG ON INDIA'S FEMALE GENDERCIDE

by Rita Banerji

When I bring up the issue of internalized misogyny in Indian women, I’m not necessarily talking about the mothers-in-law who abuse and kill their daughters-in-law for dowry. What I’m talking about is how women view themselves. It is the subtle misogyny, a form self-loathing, which often passes over women, even urban, educated, working women, without their even noticing it.

Take for instance a conversation I was having with my mother one time about one of her male relatives. She told me, with this look of complete disgust, “He’s like a woman.” She was referring to how he never takes a stand on nor assumes responsibility for any family project, and lets her do it all. Does she really think that that is what characterizes a woman: weakness, laziness, and incompetence? I’m a woman, she’s a woman – so does that mean she sees us…

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Why does @WomenUndrSiege Hide the Dirty Secrets of India’s Female Gendercide?

For the last 10 years, I have been researching, writing and working through my online campaign, The 50 Million Missing, to raise awareness about India’s ongoing female genocide. More than 50 million women have been eliminated from India, subjected to every form of violence, at every stage of life. (See this video)

I realize that many people don’t know! That’s why we have this campaign. And when they find out many are very supportive.

But I find, the biggest resistance in the west are are women’s and human rights groups, people who have some awareness about what’s going on, and who turn and look away even when I provide them with the information.

And I’m writing this blog to tell you about one such incidence with a blog called “Women Under Siege” and to ask why this is so? (more…)