Undesired
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India is a diverse country, separated by class and ethnicity. But all women confront the cultural pressure to bear a son. The consequence of this preference is a disregard for the lives of women and girls. From birth until death they face a constant threat of violence and, too frequently, death.
Citation
Main credits
Astrada, Walter (filmmaker)
Astrada, Walter (photographer)
Astrada, Walter (interviewee)
Maierson, Eric (film producer)
Other credits
Photography by Walter Astrada; interviews, Shreeya Sinha.
Distributor subjects
women studies, Asian studies, India, sociology, cultural anthropology, women rights, family issues, reproduction rights; Expository; WOKeywords
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.