Evil of Dowry discussed (i) Boys parent demand money, gifts on the eve of the wedding.

(ii) Brides harassed so that they may bring more dowry from their parents. (iii) Young girls commit suicide owing to it. (iv) Young girls burnt by their in laws. (v) Sometimes unmarried girls commit suicide when they see parents worried. Legal Efforts : (i) Mobilize public opinion against it. (ii) Youth should refuse to give or take dowry. (iii) Girls should be professionally educated, so that they can stand on their own feet.

Dowry is a symbol of male superiority and womans degradation. Due to this evil, the birth of a daughter is looked down upon with from woman becomes a burden. Dowry seekers demanding a heavy dowry, have made the life of the parents and girls really hellish. Naked and shameful display of wealth encourages dowry. The dowry hunters are responsible for the deaths and burning of many bridges. The result is that the parents of a girl have to make themselves paupers in order to arrange her marriage.

1. Maximum deaths occurred in age group 21-25 years followed by 16-20 years and then 26-30 year group. 2. Maximum deaths in married females occur in first three years of their married life after which incidence show much of declining pattern which could be due to improved relations between wife and in-laws and husband with passage of time. 3. Maximum females died under such circumstances were Hindus followed by Muslims and then Sikhs, while no married female dying within her 7 years of marriage of unnatural death belonged to Christianity. 4. Maximum incidence was seen in those having nuclear families followed by those in joint families while only a few had died at their parents house. This may be attributable to changing socio-cultural and family patterns in metropolitan and sub-urban regions.

5. About half of the victims were found to be illiterate and among those literate, nonmatriculates formed more than half of the core. Graduates and technical / professional combined constituted merely 9.39% of total.

6. Maximum young married female having died of unnatural deaths within 7 years of their marriage were housewives. Followed by those who were either maids or laborers.
7

7. Lower middle income group (1000-2000/- per month) was the worst affected. Followed by middle middle class (> 2000 per month) 8. Incidence was more among the females having no issues followed by those who had only female babies. 9. Dowry death cases accounted for only 23.07% of the total.

Wives in their early twenties came out to be the worst affected ones (55.5%) followed by those in late teens.

Table No. 1 Age-wise incidence S. No. Age group (yrs.) Number of cases percentage

1.
2. 3. 4. 5. Total

< 15
16-20 21-25 26-30 > 31

1
33 65 17 1 117

00.85
28.20 55.55 14.52 00.85 99.97

CASES

In another shocking incident, Roopa (name changed), a young woman, who refused to bring Rs 25,000 cash and a 10 gram gold chain, as demanded by her in-laws, was burnt alive by her husband in Hubli. The victim was married four years ago In a ghastly incident that took place in Hubli recently, Geeta (name changed) died after her husband, who was pestering her to bring more money and gold from her father, banged her head against a wall. The couple was married for seven years. Case: Bride Kidnapping: Kyrgyzstan is the country with the highest prevalence of bride kidnapping. Up to one-third of all ethnic Kyrgyz women in Kyrgyzstan were kidnapped brides. Some studies suggest that in certain regions, bride kidnapping rates reach up to 80 percent of marriages. Almost half of the 1,322 marriages registered in sex Kyrgyzstan villages were from bride kidnapping, and up to twothirds were non-consensual. In one Kyrgyz village, 63% of kidnapped brides were ages 16 to 25, 47% were 36 to 56, and 27% were 76 or older. Out of 806 case studies, 65% of bride kidnapping cases occurred after 1990.

Wedding are no longer happy events, but keep the brides, parents on tenterhooks lest the grooms family demand unreasonable gifts on the eve of the weeding Another technique adopted by the boys family is not to make unreasonable demands before the wedding, but harass the girl after the wedding to induce her to request her parents to give the gifts they ask for. Another ploy used by such uncouth people is to pack the bride off to her parents house and told to come back only if she can induce her parents to give more dowry. In such situation, the girl has no option but to accede to these demands and urge her parents to fulfill them. Sometimes, when girl know that their parents cannot fulfill these demands, they are driven to commit suicide. This sorry state of affair should be amended as soon as possible, and the solutions are not very easy. The law has come to our end, and giving and taking dowry is a criminal offence, and yet people fearlessly continue giving and accepting dowry with impurity. Thus it is clear that the law alone cannot solve the problem.

Dowry death, like domestic violence, is the kind of term that hides the reality. It should be called murder, because its not an accidental or natural death. Its a premeditated, deliberate, cold-blooded act of murder and solely for profit, because the brides parents could not pay up.Imagine the horror of being forcibly held down, doused in kerosene or petrol and set ablaze. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, there were 8,391 reported cases of dowry deaths in 2010. Just under double the number of cases registered in 1995 4,648 cases. For every dowry death reported, there are dozens that go unreported. Of the 8,391 reported cases in 2010, although 93.2 per cent were chargesheeted, the conviction rate was a miserable 33.6 per cent. The murderers and their families get away with it. Whats worse, they go scot free and bring back another bride.

Womens groups fought tooth and nail from the 1970s onwards to get anti-dowry legislation in place to protect brides. Unfortunately, though the campaign, which was at its peak in the 1980s, raised awareness and had women protesting all over the country, dowries, and dowry deaths, have not been eradicated as the statistics show. Indeed, the figures are even more horrifying considering India claims to have moved out of the feudal ages and into the 21st century. Books can be written about dowry; a blog is simply too short.

Bride goes missing A case was filed wherein the bride filed

a complaint with the police against her in-laws, of torture for more dowry. After many pleadings, the in-laws were released from custody but, shockingly, the bride was missing from the next day. No clue has been found till now about her whereabouts. Police has refused to comment on the issue

The important thing to be done here is to mobilize public opinion against it. Young men should refuse to take dowry. They should realize that marriage is a union of two souls. Another important solution is for every girl to be professionally educated so that she has the ability to earn before she is married. If she is working before marriage it would be even bother, for being financially independent would make her self-confident. Finally, the real solution can only come if public opinion is strongly mobilized against the giving and taking of dowry. Thus, only a consistent, persistent and co-operative effort by everybody to propagate the message of the social evil of dowry can solve the problem.

MANGALORE: A campaign against dowry in the Muslim community has gone online in Dakshina Kannada district. A group of youths have opened a page in Facebook with the title Youth Against Dowry (YAD). Fighting the dowry menace and creating awareness among the educated young are the main objectives of this apolitical outfit. Initial response to the page is good. The signature campaign was organized by an energetic organization of youngsters from the coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi called Youth Against Dowry. Dr. Farhan Muhammad, President, Youth Against Dowry, DK and Udupi. Youth Against Dowry also hold mobile awareness campaigns wherein it will try to reach out to people of various places and villages in DK and Udupi.

An Act to prohibit the giving or taking of dowry Be it enacted by Parliament in the Twelfth Year of the Republic of India as follows: 1. Short title, extent and commencement.-(1) This Act may be called the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961. It extends to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir. It shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the official Gazette, appoint. 2. Penalty for giving or taking dowry.-(1) If any person, after the commencement of this Act, gives or takes or abets the giving or taking of dowry, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than five years, and with the fine which shall not be less than fifteen thousand rupees or the amount of the value of such dowry, whichever is more: Provided that the Court may, for adequate and special reasons to be recorded in the judgment, impose a sentence of imprisonment for a term of less than five years. 3. Penalty for demanding dowry.- If any person demands directly or indirectly, from the parents or other relatives or guardian of a bride or bridegroom as the case may be, any dowry, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six months but which may extend to two years and with fine which may extend to ten thousand rupees:

As per the Indias National Crime Records Bureau in 2010, 8,391 women died in dowryrelated deaths, and 44 per cent of all crimes against women in the country were carried out by their husbands and relatives. As the evil of dowry demands and deaths grows, the much popular matrimony website, Shaadi.com has come up with an innovative way of generating awareness about this malaise. Rolling out the online game, Angry Brides, inspired by the extensively popular Angry Birds game, the company wishes to engage its audience in an anti-dowry drive. The Facebook based game has already managed a fan base of over 2,70,000, and over 40000 active users. The players attack prospective greedy grooms with weapons such as stilettos and broomsticks, while the grooms a doctor, an engineer and a pilot dodge the attacks while demanding dowries, starting from Rs. 15 Lakh. As the players manage to hit the groom, they win money towards a virtual anti-dowry fund.

A) Social and economic measures: 1) Public opinion against this grave malady in the society through various agencies should be mobilized through various agencies like media coverage and NGOs. 2) An effective coordination should be sought between the non-government, voluntary and law enforcing agencies to prevent and contour crime against women. 3) Costly and ostentatious marriage rituals should be discouraged with an economical ban on such marriages. 4) Safety precautions to be adopted to prevent domestic accidents should be given to the families through government and non government agencies. 5) Promoting literacy among the women to make them economically independent and free by providing job opportunities. B) Legal measures: 1. Enact more stringent laws

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