WEBVTT

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My husband, he hates me.

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And he doesn\'t want to live with me.

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Wants to remarry because
he wants to have sons,

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which I have not given him.

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So according to him I was a useless wife.

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He wanted to throw me out.

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I went to India,

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the women there were facing violence

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since they were a child

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until they are almost to die.

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The women,

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their duty is to have a boy.

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If not, you are useless.

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They don\'t want girls

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because if you have a daughter

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you need to pay the dowry.

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So they feel a daughter will be taking

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some money out of the family

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whereas a son will be bringing in money.

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If you have one daughter you can pay that.

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But if you have two, three or four,

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it\'s a lot of money.

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and it can be all the
earnings in their life.

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So how can you go ahead and kill a girl

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just because she\'s a girl?

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You\'re killing an entire sex.

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And how will the world go on without it?

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These doctors, they know
what they are doing is wrong

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but because of money,

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they don\'t care.

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I mean,

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just killing a child,

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a perfectly normal child

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only on the basis of her sex,

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it is beyond comprehension.

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I am alive here today

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because my mother decided not to kill me.

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We are all here today

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because our mothers decided to keep us.

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The courts in India take 20 years,

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30 years to decide on a case.

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If this is the way the
authorities are treating me,

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will any other woman come forward?

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I was taking pictures of one girl

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who was giving birth.

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Some doctors were saying,

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if she\'s not having a boy,

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will be a big problem.

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The family-in-law is waiting outside.

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They pass the baby to the
sister of the husband.

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The first reaction was
check the sex of the baby.

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And was a girl.

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Everybody was completely silent.

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You don\'t need a language to understand.

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I was told that,

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what\'s the problem if
your husband wants a son?

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You are young, you can again get pregnant.

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You mean to say that we
women are just machines

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and we should go on producing
children until we get a son?

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Should the child be born and
if she is a girl, sometimes

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she is abandoned in hospitals.

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The girl who is with the broken arm and

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the burn in the face,

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neighbors complained to the police that

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the parents were treating her badly.

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So the police, they took her to the

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home for abandoned girls.

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It was shocking to go into
one of these places and

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see that were all girls.

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In one point is good,

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because it is stopping
the abortion of girls,

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but

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you are telling the people, OK,

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we understand that you
don\'t want a girl, so

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we will take care of them,

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don\'t worry.

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If she is kept,

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she will be made to eat last.

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The boy will be given the
best food in the house.

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The boy will be sent to the better school.

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What I found

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were parents taking the
boys to the hospital,

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but not girls.

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Imagine you are forcing your wife to make

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maybe two, three, four abortions

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to get a boy.

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The man, it\'s like treasure.

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You need to keep it healthy.

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That is another way of discrimination.

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Because a woman is considered a burden

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and she\'s not sent to school,

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not given job training,

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so she cannot earn her own income.

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She will never be taught anything about

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what can she own,

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what can she buy.

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Nothing.

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Her cooking, her cleaning,

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her looking after all the male members

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of the household is given no value.

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She will only be groomed

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to serve some other man.

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So any creativity,

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any potential she has,

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she\'s taught to keep it

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within herself.

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We just can\'t be normal human beings.

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Nobody is thinking of the simpler solution.

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That she could also earn as
much money as her brother

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if she was sent to school.

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And the school fees would
be less than the dowry

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that most people put into
the marriage of a child.

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Sometimes the dowry that
the family was paying,

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it\'s not enough.

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Because the family-in-law
was asking more money.

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So what they said is OK,

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if you don\'t give us more money,

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She is murdered by the boy\'s family

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so that he can marry one more girl,

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and bring in more dowry.

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The father, he knew that the
daughter was going to die.

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It\'s very difficult for

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women to go out of this ring of violence.

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Because if they go out,

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where they go?

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I found a protection home for women

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who were rescued.

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I saw girls of 14 years old there.

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I asked the guy,

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you know, what is the
future for these girls?

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Can she go out?

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And he said,

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No.

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Because they don\'t have
any other place to go.

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She will be here until

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she get married maybe.

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You cannot go out if you are

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trying to live alone.

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Your life will be inside
that protection home

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with the lock in the door

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where you cannot move out.

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I saw the eyes.

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They were like completely gone.

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She will be taken to pilgrim towns

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and dumped over there.

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And she will end up a beggar.

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From birth to death this is her fate.

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They earn money from

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singing in the temples.

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They receive maybe one
or two rupees per day.

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One rupee is around one cent.

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This denial in India

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about whats happening to our girls

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is going to pull our country back.

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Because they\'re leaving
half the population behind.

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One of the best incentives

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that the government is trying to give

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is the incentive to educate your girl.

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And I think it is going to bring out

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long-term transformation.

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My elder daughter

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came and sat down on my lap.

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I could see that she\'s disturbed.

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And then she asked me, Mama,

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could I have been killed?

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Yes you could\'ve been killed,

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but I was there to catch you.

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and then she just gave me two kisses,

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and she said, thanks Mama for saving me.

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For giving me this life.

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And just as fear is contagious,

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courage is also contagious.

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And it can lead to big movements

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and the entire violence
against women movement

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has to be based on us speaking up.

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People once they hear what happens to us

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will think differently.

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And this is the most effective tool we have

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alone or together.