Is all happiness lost to Shukhi?

How many Shukhis have to endure violence, severe torture and sometimes death when demands for more dowries not being met in Bangladesh? How many monstrous husbands and in-laws will abuse and kill innocent young women because their poor parents cannot pay the dowry amount to the husbands or to their families? This is happening all too often across Bangladesh — from Jessore to Dhaka's outskirts to mention a few cases.

It is well documented that since the independence of Bangladesh, the dowry problem has become more acute. Despite the passing of laws dowry related violence has increased. There are many factors that are conducive to dowry linked violence.

Dowry violence is nothing short of savagery and an evil practice. The ironic thing is that such gruesome cruelties and deaths are caused by their husbands and in-laws, who are supposed to protect the bride after the marriage. It ultimately comes down to our society being male-controlled, where women are devalued.

There is an unwritten custom that a new bride from all kinds of families and backgrounds will bring with her jewellery, money, and goods such as furniture, watch, motorbike, car, property or even livestock for her husband.

According to a news story in a Dhaka English daily, in Savar, a day before Eid-ul-Fitr, a girl named Shukhi Akhter's 'Life suddenly became gloomy on Friday noon when her husband gouged out her right eye and stabbed the other one with a screw driver leaving her blind.' Twenty-six-year old Shukhi faced such horrific fate because her father couldn't pay an additional Tk 1.5 lac to her greedy husband Robiul Islam as part of a dowry demand.

Shukhi is the third child of Nur Mohammad and Layla Begum. Nur is a farmer in a village called Mollakanda under Nawabganj, in Dhaka.

Robiul had carried out this merciless act, first, by tying Shukhi's legs and leaving her in a locked room. Then he sent their 7 year old daughter away to a shop. It was noon time and the members of the house owner's family and a lot of the neighbours were at the mosque offering their Jumma prayers. Rabiul's siblings 'Akhter and Idris held her hands, legs and head and Rabiul jumped on her chest and gouged her right eye out with a screw driver and was trying to gouge out her left eye', said Shukhi's father.

If the house owner's family members and other neighbours didn't return home, then Shukhi's husband was also going to take out her left eye. They all had heard Shuki's scream and had to rescue her by breaking the door open.

Shukhi later was taken to the National Institute of Ophthalmology and Hospital (NIOH) in the capital where the doctors are unsure whether she would ever get back her sight. A team of competent doctors are overseeing her case.

When she was born her parents named her Shukhi (happiness) and they had hopes and dreams for her future. Shukhi got married at age sixteen. As it happens, in most poor families girls do not go to school to get an education. Instead when they are about ten years old, from then on they are groomed for marriage and they are trained to do household chores and how to cook. They are taught the intricate skills of stitching a kantha, doing embroidery, and learning to crochet a flower on a pillow-case in the hope of getting a good marriage proposal.

So like many teen brides in Bangladesh, Shukhi was married off to Robiul. At the time of her marriage Shukhi's father gave Tk 50,000 as dowry and other gifts to the groom. Later he gave Tk 1.5 lac as Robiul desired to go to Dubai to earn a better living. Shukhi's poor father saw it as an investment towards his daughter's future happiness. Robiul later returned empty-handed and demanded more money and Shukhi refused to go to her father knowing he cannot come up with the additional amount.

As a result, Shukhi has just become the latest statistic in a long list of dowry victims in the hands of husbands and their families.

What now? Well, Shukhi is groaning in pain in Ward 526 and her parents are demanding justice from the government. 'I have no money, I want justice from the government,' Nur said sobbing sitting by his daughter's hospital bed.

According to NIOH director Professor Jalal Ahmed, 'The cornea of her left eye was in good condition but the nerves were affected.' Now Shukhi cannot see and it is too early to predict whether she will get her eyesight back.

One would think a normal and conscientious human being simply cannot take out an eyeball of another person and throw it away! However, this terrible man named Robiul did exactly that. He has been arrested and sent to jail while his two brothers went into hiding.

Similarly, on November 30, 2014, I read in a Bangladeshi newspaper, that a man named Jahirul beat his 15 year-old teenager bride Rekha to death for her inability to pay Tk 40,000 dowry payment. This horrible death took place in Jessore's Kharki area in Manirapur Upazila.

Rekha was taken to Jessore Sadar Hospital, where she later died at midnight. Since her death, Jahirul along with his two brothers who were his accomplices went missing.

According to another report, a day before Rekha's death, 'A housewife was tortured and her two legs were allegedly broken by her husband,' over a dowry dispute. The victim Laboni Akther, 23, was from Rajapur village in Jessore. Her husband of four years beat her mercilessly with an iron rod until her both legs broke over Tk 1 lac dowry.

A couple of years ago an article titled 'A wife's darkest hour' chronicled a wife's brutal murder at the hands of her husband for her failure to bring in the dowry which was negotiated during the marriage proposal. She was set on fire by her abusive and greedy husband. She was burned to death. Another news story had revealed that a bride was burned to death on the twenty-second day of her marriage in Chapainawabganj, for not bringing in enough dowries.

These are only few stories that I had read about. I am sure many more go unreported by the media and the human rights organizations keep mum about those.

Last December, when I went through the Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) annual report, I couldn't find any terrible dowry related violence that had occurred in 2014 to be listed there. Now my question is: Didn't Rekha deserve to live? Why would Laboni's husband break her bones? Why would Shukhi's husband blind her by taking her eyes out? Are these not gross violations of their human rights?

Seeing the abridged and incomplete report, a couple of months ago, I wrote to ASK executive director Sultana Kamal asking for an interview. I wanted to find out what an organization like ASK is doing to prevent dowry violence in Bangladesh. As of today, I still haven't received a reply from her office.

Perhaps the Shukhi case will make the human rights organizations like ASK reevaluate such incidents are not 'lesser' cases to go unnoticed. They should stand up for all victims.

It is unbelievable that such atrocious acts and gruesome murders are being carried out with impunity in our country on a regular basis.

Many Asian countries, including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, follow the practice of dowry, irrespective of different religious beliefs. Receiving dowry from the wife's family is forbidden in the Qur'an. Dowry is nothing less than a revolting social convention. The social customs are such that in the 21^st century a husband consumed by greed can brutally murder his wife when her family cannot meet the dowry claim.

From the moment a baby girl is born, especially in low-income families, parents start worrying for wealth and whether that would be enough to protect the well-being of their daughter so that when she is married off, they can meet the dowry demand.

The dowry system is prevalent in the subcontinent for centuries. It is essentially a contract between the father of the bride and the father of the groom before a marriage takes place. Marriage is supposed to be a social contract between a man and a woman, where they promise in the name of God to love and honour one another. By taking dowry one undermines the entire sanctity of the institution of marriage.

Accepting and demanding a dowry has become an acceptable custom in our society. For each girl in upper-class to middle-class, to the poor — a dowry is given to the groom's family. It determines a bride's worth to that particular family. In the villages, if a woman is not pretty enough, the demand seems to be higher. In many of the families the dowry demand causes an enormous strain. Poor families often become destitute in providing a dowry for the daughter in order to marry her off.

Other than greed — poverty also plays a big role in accepting a dowry payment. Some people might argue that for a poor family dowry is a means to an end.

When a dowry payment is not met, other methods of unusual cruelty are often bestowed upon the wives — from torture, heavy beating, burning of their faces with acid, gang rape, and other inconceivable mental and psychological punishment become a routine affair. A discontent husband sometimes ends up murdering his wife.

Under pressure from human rights groups the Bangladesh government passed the Dowry Prohibition Act in 1980. This law 'legally banned dowries and imposed sanctions' by declaring that accepting dowry could land someone in jail, or a fine, or both. This law is not followed in practice. Newspapers and other media agencies are constantly reporting dowry violence. The public is well aware of it. Public scrutiny is not strong enough to have the dowry system totally eliminated.

In our society sometimes a dowry agreement has to be fulfilled because that particular family's honour and social position are at stake. Dowry equals wealth – which becomes a status symbol. For an uneducated girl a dowry payment starts at Tk 20,000 but an educated girl often has to bring a much higher dowry to get the right bridegroom.

What will entirely eliminate the dowry practice? In order to eradicate such social evil the families with teen daughters have to change the concept of child marriage and offer schooling as an alternative to their preteen daughters. Undoubtedly, getting an education will make girls assertive and independent in enhancing women empowerment.

Despite a slightly higher enrollment rate in education and indicators of women becoming more independent than they were before, the culture and practice of dowry remains customary both explicitly and in some cases implicitly.

Dowry is indisputably a disgraceful practice. While media plays a key role by reporting the violence, enforcement of the dowry prohibition law is essential to improve the situation. New legislation making women's education compulsory should be supported. Education will make girls self-confident and they will not feel like a commodity that is negotiated and contracted with the grooms' family. Only then they will be in a position to combat a social evil like the dowry system.

We need to increase our level of social awareness to rid our society of such malpractice. Otherwise, dowry related violence would form a huge impediment to the country's development.

No one should stay quiet when injustices plaguing our society.

I am not sure how many times I will wake up in the middle of the night and shudder in horror thinking about Shukhi in that hospital room … who perhaps right about now is telling herself that her name should be changed to Dukhi.

Zeenat Khan is a freelance contributor to bdnews24.com.