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Wedlock and tradition can drive women to suicide in India

Harassment from in-laws over unpaid dowries and ensuing depression cited as key reasons for spike in female suicides
Wedlock and tradition can drive women to suicide in India

Then-student Santa Devi Meghwal was 20 when this photo was taken on Aug. 24, 2015. She was reacting to a media interview in which she recalled being married off by her parents at the age of just 11 months to a 9-year-old boy from a neighbouring village in the desert state of Rajasthan, where rates of child marriages have long been high. (Photo by Money Sharma/AFP)

Published: October 01, 2018 08:37 AM GMT
Updated: October 03, 2018 01:51 AM GMT

Sarita, a 32-year-old salesgirl who works at a shopping mall in Delhi, has survived two suicide attempts that she blames on a failed marriage, which she said led to her being socially ostracized and succumbing to depression.

She is among a growing number of young Indian women who are falling pray to extreme depression as a result of male-dominated social traditions and customs linked to marriage, studies show.

India's proportional contribution to global suicide deaths is "higher than expected for its socio-demographic index level, especially for women," The Lancet medical journal said in a research note published on Sept. 13.

As part of its investigation into "The Global Burden of Disease," it found that Indian women comprised 36.6 percent of all female suicides in 2016 — up from 25.3 percent in 1990 — while the corresponding number for Indian men two years ago was 24 percent. 

"India is imperative to making a global difference in the burden of suicides," the research note stated. 

The situation has become such a concern that Delhi launched a "happiness curriculum" on July 2 of this year to measure students' feelings in a desperate bid to curb the number of suicides among schoolchildren, especially girls.

In Sarita's case, she tried to kill herself by overdosing on morphine and then slashing her left wrist. On both occasions, people rushed to her rescue.

Imtiyaz Ahmad, a psychiatrist in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, blamed arranged marriages and the customs attached to this practice for the alarming spike in female suicide rates.

"Often women end up becoming real victims with no voice and no rights at all. Economically dependent women have to bear the brunt of societal expectations. A lack of education and [lack of concern about] their mental health is another concern," Ahmad told ucanews.com.

Sarita's story is a case point. She fell in love with a college friend and married him at the age of 23 despite her family not having a sufficient dowry. Even though her husband assured her this was not a problem, she said "things turned ugly within a year."

Her in-laws and husband began harassing her for money, jewellery or a car as a dowry, as is customary in the region.

"Jibes, abuse, ridicule and a few slaps soon became the order of the day," she said.

After they got divorced, "the real torture began," she said.

"My relatives and neighbors wanted to know why I was divorced. Then the emotional torture I'd suffered at the hands of my in-laws started literally coming back to haunt me in my dreams, and finally I became suicidal."

After she regained consciousness at a local hospital, with the morphine having been pumped out of her system, she went straight to a washroom, found a razor, and began hacking at her wrist.

"I didn't want to live. There wasn't any reason to keep on going," she said.

Doctors referred her to a psychiatric ward where she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In a bid to get her back on her feet, her brother helped her land a job at the mall where she is now taking life one day at a time.

 

Chained by social mores

Gender-based discrimination is the root cause of the spiking suicide rate in Indian society, claims Vikram Patel, who co-authored the "Global Burden of Disease" study.

"Many women are forced into arranged marriages. They have dreams and aspirations, but in most cases their spouses are not supportive of these. Sometimes their parents don't support them, either," he told the BBC.

"They are trapped in a difficult system and social milieu."

According to the WHO there are about 57 million people suffering from depression in India, or 18 percent of the global total.

Data from the federal government data shows that issues related to marriage make up 4.8 percent of all suicides in India, accounting for 135,445 cases in 2016 alone.

But the study by The Lancet said official data in India is untrustworthy as the government routinely under-reports suicides. A comprehensive analysis "is however not readily available," it said.

The country "must develop a suicide prevention strategy that takes into account these variations [the distorted ratio of male/female suicides] in order to address this major public health problem," the study continued.

Anajli Bharti, a social activist in India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh, said the majority of Indian women who try to take their own lives do so as a result of being harassed by their in-laws for a bigger dowry.

Despite a number of women-centric schemes launched by the government to help them gain education, employment and soft loans, the situation for many remains dismal. 

"Society isn't ready to accept women [as being equal]. They're not seen as wives, but as baby incubators and maids," she said.

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