Bride burning is a form of torture murder practiced in and around the Indian subcontinent. A form of dowry death, bride-burning occurs when a woman is murdered by her husband or his family for her family's refusal to pay additional dowry. The wife is typically doused with kerosene, gasoline, or other flammable liquid, and set alight, leading to death by burning. Kerosene is often used as the cooking fuel for small petrol stoves, some of which are dangerous, so it allows the claim that the crime was an accident.
In 2004, bride burning was recognized as an important problem in India. In 1995, Time magazine reported that dowry deaths in India increased from around 400 a year in the early 1980s to around 5,800 a year by the middle of the 1990s. According to Indian National Crime Record Bureau, there were 1,948 convictions and 3,876 acquittals in dowry death cases in 2008.
History
Dowry deaths
A dowry death is the death of a young woman in South Asian countries, primarily India, who is murdered or driven to suicide by her husband. This results from the husband or his family continually attempting to extract more dowry from the bride or her family. Bride burning is just one form of dowry death; acid throwing, poisoning and other forms of fatal violence also occur. Because dowry typically depends on class or socioeconomic status, women are often subjected to the dowry pressures of their future husband or his relatives.
One of the more culturally-founded theories suggests that in a highly patriarchal society such as India, a woman's role is defined from before she is born, which ultimately places her as lesser than men. Because she is seen as a burden and an "extra mouth to feed", Because of this, dowry is used as a means to gain a higher socioeconomic status. In India, dowry size is a reflection of wealth. The Indian author Rajesh Talwar has written a play on dowry deaths titled The Bride Who Would Not Burn.
In 1961, the government of India passed the Dowry Prohibition Act, making the dowry demands in wedding arrangements illegal.
In 1986, the Indian Parliament added dowry deaths as a new domestic violence crime. According to the new section 304-B of the Indian Penal Code, where a bride "within 7 years of her marriage is killed and it is shown that soon before her death, she was subjected to cruelty or harassment by her husband, or any relative of her husband, or in connection with any demand for dowry, such death shall be called 'dowry death' and such husband or relative shall be deemed to have caused her death." Many cases of dowry-related domestic violence, suicides, and murders have been reported. A 1997 report claimed that at least 5000 women die each year because of dowry deaths and at least a dozen die each day in 'kitchen fires' thought to be intentional. About 30 percent of reported dowry deaths result in convictions in courts. According to an Amnesty International report in 1999, although 1600 bride burning incidents were reported, only 60 were prosecuted and, of those, only two resulted in convictions.
In Pakistan, women including Shahnaz Bukhari have been campaigning for protective legislation against the practice, for established women's shelters and for hospitals with specialised burn wards. Amnesty International has said that pressure from within, as well as from international human rights groups, may be increasing the level of awareness within the Pakistani government. The BBC estimated that roughly 300 Pakistani brides were burnt to death in 1999.
In 1988, a survey showed that 800 women were killed in this manner; in 1989, the number rose to 1100, and in 1990 it stood at 1800 estimated killings. Newspapers in Lahore in a six-month period (1997) reported on average 15 attacks a month. According to an estimate by Human Development in South Asia, on average there are 16 cases of bride burnings a month. Women's eNews reported 4000 women attacked in this manner in Islamabad's surroundings over an eight-year period and that the average age range of victims is between 18 and 35 with an estimated 30 percent being pregnant at the time of death. <blockquote>Either Pakistan is home to possessed stoves which burn only young housewives, and are particularly fond of genitalia, or looking at the frequency with which these incidences occur there is a grim pattern that these women are victims of deliberate murder.</blockquote> According to the Progressive Women's Association such attacks are a growing problem and in 1994 on International Women's Day announced that various NGOs would join to raise awareness of the issue. One woman is killed every hour in Pakistan as a form of domestic violence, a practice known as bride burning, a category of dowry murder, resulting in possibly one of the most gruesome deaths, burning alive.
In other nations
Occasionally, bride burning happens among resettled Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in other parts of the world, such as the United States.
Aleyamma Mathew was a registered nurse at a hospital in Carrollton, Texas, who died of burn wounds on 5 April 1992. She and her husband, Mathew Varughese, had immigrated from India two decades before and had three daughters in the United States. to halt dowry murders. It was amended in the early 1980s to "rectify several inherent weaknesses and loopholes" Article 5 proclaims: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." One way this could be achieved would be by including women in the definition of a "persecuted social group", Even when married, the bride has no rights over the property belonging to the husband while he is living.