India:
India is a prime example of a Third-World country.
There are many extremely poor people who must live under terrible conditions. A
lot of people starve to death or are at least so poor that they can hardly
afford enough food to survive. There is not enough clean drinking water too.The
climate is very hot, especially in the south and every year floods but also
droughts kill thousands of Indians.
Millions of Indians are illiterates. There exist more than two-hundred
different languages or regional dialects but the official language is still
English.
In India, like in many developing countries, women are treated badly. They are
considered as not important and are worth less than sheep.
People in India still go in for very old and cruel rites and customs:
- Baby-girls are often killed right after birth.
- Young girls are sold as "temple dancers" but in fact they become prostitutes.
- There is a tradition in very poor Indian Muslim families to sell daughters at
bride-bazaars. Sometimes the price for such a very young girl is about the same
as what you have to pay for a TV-set or a bike. Arab men from the Middle East
come to Hyderabad, a city in the south of India in order to buy a child bride
which is used for a cheap worker afterwards. Those girls often are treated like
slaves and beaten regularly.
- There are also terrible customs in Indian Hindu families. Officially
forbidden and called household accidents, young women are burnt to death. These
"accidents" are nothing but cases of dowry-deaths. When the dowry might seem
too low for the groom's parents such an accident easily can happen. The widower
can marry soon again getting the next dowry.
Marriage between Children
In India there is the tradition of child marriages. It is terrible because the
children are very young. One of the reasons is money because most Indian
families are so poor, they try to keep the dowry low by marrying their
daughters very young. The children stay with their parents until the girls are
fourteen. The weddings are short and simple because they are not allowed by the
state. Usually the young wives become mothers very early and then have too many
children. But there is another problem. When the husband dies young the widow
is "worthless" and cannot marry anybody else although she is still so young.
Social workers try to change these traditional habits but it is very difficult
to overcome old customs and it will take time until women in India will have
more rights. It's said, that if there is no change there will be too less women
in India in the future.
