WUNRN
INDIA - FARMERS SELL WIVES TO PAY
DEBTS IN RURAL INDIA
By
Sara Sidner - CNN
October 23, 2009
BUNDELKHAND, India (CNN) -- The cattle
slowly drag the old-fashioned plow as a bone-thin farmer walks behind,
encouraging them to move faster with a series of yelps.
Drought, debt and desperation have pushed some farmers in rural India to
sell their wives.
It is a scene from times of old,
but still the way many farmers operate in rural India, where the harvest often
determines feast or famine.
The region is called Bundelkhand, spanning the two northern
Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. It is here that drought,
debt and desperation have pushed people to extremes.
To survive the bad years, some farmers say they turn to the
"Paisawalla" -- Hindi for the rich man who lends money. Farmers say
the loans from these unofficial lenders usually come with very high interest.
When the interest mounts up, lenders demand payment. Some
farmers work as bonded laborers for a lifetime to pay off their debts. Others
here say because of years of little rain and bad harvests they are forced to
give money lenders whatever they ask for.
Sometimes that includes their wives.
"It happens sometimes when somebody borrows money,"
says a farmer's wife who did not want to be identified. She should know,
considering what police say she told them. She said a rich man bought her from
her husband.
"He did buy me," she says. "That's why he told
me he bought me."
For 30 days she says the man forced her to live with him.
When her case drew public attention, she retracted her police
report and her husband took her back.
Ranjana Kumari with India's Center for Social Research
says the exploitation of women is common in the region. And, she says, there is
little support for women in India who have the courage to file a case with
authorities.
"Nobody's going to support or help them," Kumari
says. "If a family decides not to help them, the system is already not so
sensitized towards them, whether it is police, judiciary, whether the legal
system. So the women themselves tend to withdraw these cases."
In another village, another story involving another farmer,
and money lender.
"I sold my water engine and land and gave back his
30,000 rupees," the farmer says, describing his $600 loan payment.
The farmer, whom CNN is not identifying to protect his wife
and children, says the lender then asked him to send his wife to help with
chores while the lender's wife was sick. The farmer says he complied, and his
children -- including his daughter -- went too.
But the mother never returned. The farmer says he believes
she was stolen from him. The daughter says the lender sold her mother to
another man.
State authorities say they have investigated the matter and
found that the mother denies she was sold and has simply gone to live with a
lover.
The daughter says that's not true, and claims that she and
her father were told to keep quiet by some of the village leaders. During CNN's
interview with the family, officials with the state magistrate's office barged
into the farmer's home and began videotaping.
An Indian government report completed in 1998 says the region
is prone to what it calls "atrocities," including the buying and
selling of women.
However no one can say just how common these kinds of incidents
are.
Social workers say this isn't just about poverty, but also an
indication of the low social status of women in poverty-stricken areas such as
Bundelkhand.
"Those women are very vulnerable to all kinds of
physical and sexual exploitation." Kumari says. "Also there is much
higher level of violence against women in that area."
The government and charities have been trying to help but the
status of women and girls, often illiterate and seen as a financial burden,
remains low. Nevertheless, attitudes are slowly beginning to change, Kumari
says.
A farmer's wife in yet another village in the region said she
was sold by her own parents 14 years ago.
"My mother and father got 10,000 rupees (about
$200)," she says. "That's why they sold me."
She says she was 12 years old at the time her husband bought
her. She never considered going to authorities because she says she had no
where else to go. She accepted it as her destiny.
But now she has a daughter of her own and her perspective has
changed.
Would she allow her daughter to be sold?
She looked up and shook her head firmly.
"No," she said, "I would not want this for her. Let her marry however she wants."
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