A young girl was tortured and killed by her adult brother in Ulhasnagar earlier this week. The 12 year old, who had just begun menstruating, was accused by her 30 year old brother of having an “AFFAIR”. However, according to police sources, it was likely that due to a lack of knowledge about periods, the girl was unable to explain the bloodstains on her clothes when she was asked about them.
The boy’s reaction is indicative of a long-lasting and staggeringly dangerous perception of the female body in Indian society, where a lack of education combined with archaic notions of ‘sexual purity’ often leads to femicide.
This lack of awareness or knowledge lead to someone losing her life. The conservative Indian families always fear to talk about all this openly and share the facts related to body changes while children are growing up. Honestly, this mindset and way of upbringing sucks! Indian society keeps on challenging the individual to pursue a crime like this due to fear of losing respect and pride.
D’Lima et al. write in ANTYAJAA: Indian Journal of Women and Social Change that “community honour is located within a woman’s body. A woman who exercises agency over herself is seen as violating (that) honour,” as it reflects ‘poorly’ on her male guardians. This thought process results in a society where women are simultaneously perceived as possessing the ‘purity’ of the divine feminine, as scholar Indira Sharma put it in a 2015 paper and as property for the men in their lives. Thus, normalization of this “directly lays the groundwork for justifying honour crimes and killing,” according to David Tokiharu Mayeda and Raagini Vijaykumar’s 2016 paper on honor-based violence (HBV) in Sociology Compass.
The societal lack of awareness about menstruation compounds the problem and is the other element of this tragic event. Where a woman’s “purity” resides in sexual celibacy, menstruation is often perceived as “impure”, leading to stigma and taboo that leave many in the dark about their own bodies. The taboo surrounding the female body, especially in terms of its sexual and reproductive processes are shrouded in mystery and shame – one reader told about some advice she had received about her periods: “(O)nly talk to female friends about your period; as soon as you talk about it to your male friends, they are going to rape you.”
Now, these kind of advices start coming from your own home or parents especially the Mother, instead she should teach the girl and boy both to be brave yet sensitive towards each other emotions and feelings and understand and do treat each other equally. Though, nobody knows when this fight for equality will come to an end and when will world be really living at peace!
As of this case; it was really very shameful the brother, parents and the society too in which he is grown that he took life of her sister, because of these inanity. Once give a thought to what kind of environment they live that he not even gave a second thought and killed his sister just for not giving a proper explanation. And what kind of destructive mind that boy has that he just thought, the only reason of not answering could be having an affair!
MAY THE GIRLS SOUL REST IN PEACE!