Madras: Where Women *Don't* Rule (For Now?)

[Guest guest]

MADRAS (Sept. 18, 2003) - A woman who fainted after villagers forced

her to spend five hours on her knees, bowing up and down, has won

redress from a court in southern India.

 

The High Court in Madras (Chennai) rebuked the members of a village

council for imposing the punishment upon the married woman. The

council decided to humiliate her after she demanded a divorce from

her husband. Village councils have no legal right to issue

punishments.

 

Suganthi, 32, sought to divorce her husband, an engineer. After

hearing the case, the village council ordered her to pay a fine of

50,000 rupees (roughly $1,000).

 

Rights groups say such prejudice is rife - and educated women are

not immune. Suganthi, an educated woman employed by the state-owned

telecoms company, said she could not afford the fine.

 

She was then told that she could reduce the amount of money she owed

by prostrating herself repeatedly before the village council. After

bowing up and down for more than five hours, the fine was reduced to

19,000 rupees - but by this time, Suganthi could bear it no more and

passed out.

 

She eventually handed over the remaining amount of money, but

refused to surrender custody of her children to her husband when

asked to do so.

 

Suganthi then filed a petition asking the High Court to intervene in

her case when her mother was threatened with expulsion from the

village. The judge ordered the money be paid back.

 

Women's rights groups say Suganthi's case is particularly shocking,

as it highlights how even educated women in Indian villages are not

immune from misogyny and prejudice.

 

They say the condition of illiterate women is far worse.

 

Source: Shamed woman wins case, by Sampath Kumar BBC correspondent

in Madras

URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3121074.stm