Monday, November 24, 2014

A law for logic?

The Second Amendment of the US constitution has become sacrosanct so that any politician may get away with breaking a commandment but dare not try to amend this amendment, even though children are being killed regularly. Clearly written laws, which are imposed impartially, provide the necessary framework for society to function, without which you have anarchy and chaos, as has happened in Libya where the parliament has taken refuge in a Greek ferry, for safety. Dowry, where a woman's family pays a man to marry her, is unacceptable. In the past, when property and wealth passed only to sons, it probably made sense to present daughters with gold and money at the time of marriage but it makes no sense today when girls, and even illegitimate children, have equal inheritance rights. But the practice continues because parents think that it is worth spending a fortune to buy superior grooms for their daughters. Trouble is, that men who are prepared to be bought, demand even more after marriage, perhaps in the mistaken belief that it increases their worth, and torture their wives to get more from their parents, often resulting in the death of the women. To stop the practice of dowry and ostensibly to protect women the government enacted Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code which makes it a criminal offence to treat a woman cruelly. Has it stopped the practice of dowry? No. Very few of these cases can be proved in court and women have used the law to take revenge on their husbands, or in laws, if the marriage failed due to other reasons. Does it mean that really vulnerable women should not be protected by the state? Again, no. In every case of dowry killing that is reported we find that the woman had informed her own parents of being tortured and her fears of being killed but her parents did not rescue her or inform the police because they spent so much money on her marriage. It is a form of honor killing and the woman's family are accessory to her death and should be prosecuted. Only then will this heinous practice stop. Seems that the government is deliberating a law that will punish people for employing children. Apparently middle class people are employing children as servants thereby depriving them of education and scarring them psychologically for life. When politicians and journalists drive around in our cities do they have their eyes closed? Whose fault is it that little children are begging at every corner, dodging in and out of traffic and being sold to child traffickers? India is probably the largest baby factory in India where foreigners, maybe even pedophiles, can get surrogate mothers to deliver babies for sale. People should not be allowed to produce children for profit. Any law for that?

No comments: