Thursday 30 November 2017

Gender violence in India: 'Daughters are not a burden'

Parveen Khan as a child. She was savagely bitten by her husband after she gave birth to a second daughter [Al Jazeera]
Three years into her marriage, Khan got pregnant with her first child. Hameed was not very excited about it and expressed his wish for a son.
"Nine months passed and I gave birth to a baby girl. Hameed stormed out of the hospital when he looked at our daughter," Khan recalled.
When she was expecting for the second time, Hameed insisted the baby should be aborted if it was a girl.
"Three months into my pregnancy, Hameed took me to the hospital to find out the gender of my baby. I screamed and cried, but he pulled me from my hair and dragged me to the hospital to find out," Khan said.
"Without asking me, he forced me inside the hospital to get the baby girl aborted."
Her husband forced her to abort for the third time after finding out that it was a baby girl.
"I was shattered, heartbroken and could not recover from the trauma of two innocent babies being murdered just because of their gender."
Two back-to-back abortions in one year weakened Khan and a year later she suffered a miscarriage. In the course of two years, she had lost three children and the mental trauma and physical exhaustion took a toll on her.
"I hated myself for a very long time, could not be happy and kept mourning for my lost children."
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