NCJ Number
185213
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 6 Issue: 10 Dated: October 2000 Pages: 1085-1108
Date Published
October 2000
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This article examines the reasons for “dowry deaths” in Andhra Pradesh, India, and the responses of the criminal justice system.
Abstract
The terms "dowry deaths" and "dowry murders" refer to the deaths of young married women in their in-laws’ homes caused primarily by the harassment and torture of the women for alleged inadequacy or delayed payment of dowry or fresh demands for dowry. "Dowry death" in this article denotes all unnatural deaths of married women caused by coercive control and violence against the women in their conjugal homes. The article examines 340 of the 498 reported cases of unnatural deaths in Andhra Pradesh during the years 1988 to 1992. There was an acquittal rate of 89 percent, the result, in most cases, of the ineffectiveness of the prosecution in bringing forth sufficient evidence to prove that harassment had occurred; witnesses, including parents, turning hostile; and the judiciary’s interpretation of dowry and dowry-related cruelty. The response of the criminal justice system reflects the dominant view that actions such as harassment of a woman in her marital home are within the ambit of normal relations and functions; violence against women in the home is a matter that belongs to the “private domain of the family.” Figure, tables, notes, references