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Marriage payments a a cause for murder is incomprehensible but, it continues. Can you understand or explain how and why this goes on...and on....and on? I simply cannot make any sense of it. "Kalpana reports: ‘According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, there were 8,391 reported cases of dowry deaths in 2010. Just under double the number of cases registered in 1995 – 4,648 cases. For every dowry death reported, there are dozens that go unreported. Of the 8,391 reported cases in 2010, although 93.2 per cent were charge-sheeted, the conviction rate was a miserable 33.6 per cent. The murderers and their families get away with it. What’s worse, they go scot free and bring back another bride. Women’s groups fought tooth and nail from the 1970s onwards to get anti-dowry legislation in place to protect brides. Unfortunately, though the campaign, which was at its peak in the 1980s, raised awareness and had women protesting all over the country, dowries, and dowry deaths, have not been eradicated – as the statistics show. Indeed, the figures are even more horrifying considering India claims to have moved out of the feudal ages and into the 21st century. Why hasn’t it changed? Because even educated people continue to pay up with a smile (albeit forced). It’s the norm, it’s tradition, they say. If you don’t, your daughter will suffer. I’ve had conversations with young about-to-be-married women. ‘You’re not a commodity,’ I’ve said. ‘A chap who wants money to marry you is a scumbag, definitely not worth marrying.’ At the back of my mind I know I risk incurring the wrath of their families when they find out about this conversation. I’m talking radical nonsense, confusing their daughters. Creating trouble. " How can it be accepted, as it is, by so many supposedly civilized people!!?? http://www.newint.or...eaths-in-india/ A bride burnt every hour: the horror of dowry deaths http://www.inflexwet...while-sleeping/ In India, a mother and daughter where burned while they slept over a marriage payment dispute. Bride burning and dowry murders are common place when demands are not met by the wife’s family. Funk Flex An Indian woman has died and her 13-month-old daughter suffered horrendous burns after her husband and father-in-law set them on fire as they slept, in a dispute over a dowry payment. The case has shocked India, a country where people have become use to reports of bride burnings and dowry murders – there are more than 8,000 women killed every year because their husbands’ and in-laws’ demands for lavish dowry payments are not met. What is particularly alarming is the attempted murder of a daughter and grand-daughter whose first birthday they had celebrated just weeks earlier.