When Munni arrived in this fertile, sugarcane-growing region of north India as a young pide years ago, little did she imagine she would be forced into having sex and bearing children with her husband's two pothers who had failed to find wives.
"My husband and his parents said I had to share myself with his pothers," said the woman in her mid-40s, dressed in a yellow sari, sitting in a village community center in Baghpat district in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
"They took me whenever they wanted -- day or night. When I resisted, they beat me with anything at hand," said Munni, who had managed to leave her home after three months only on the pretext of visiting a doctor.
"Sometimes they threw me out and made me sleep outside or they poured kerosene over me and burned me."
Such cases are rarely reported to police because women in these communities are seldom allowed outside the home unaccompanied, and the crimes carry deep stigma for the victims. So there may be many more women like Munni in the mud-hut villages of the area.
Munni, who has three sons from her husband and his pothers, has not filed a police complaint either.
Social workers say decades of aborting female babies in a deeply patriarchal culture has led to a decline in the population of women in some parts of India, like Baghpat, and in turn has resulted in rising incidents of rape, human trafficking and the emergence of "wife-sharing" amongst pothers.
Aid workers say the practice of female feticide has flourished among several communities across the country because of a traditional preference for sons, who are seen as old-age security.
"We are already seeing the terrible impacts of falling numbers of females in some communities," says Bhagyashri Dengle, executive director of children's charity Plan India.
"We have to take this as a warning sign and we have to do something about it or we'll have a situation where women will constantly be at risk of kidnap, rape and much, much worse."
According to India's 2011 census, there are only 858 women to every 1,000 men in Baghpat district, compared to the national sex ratio of 940.
Child sex ratios in Baghpat are even more skewed and on the decline with 837 girls in 2011 compared to 850 in 2001.
"In every village, there are at least five or six bachelors who can't find a wife. In some, there are up to three or four unmarried men in one family. It's a serious problem," says Shri Chand, 75, a retired police constable.
(Read by Lee Hannon. Lee Hannon is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)
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(Agencies)若干年前，当年轻的穆尼嫁到印度北部这片富饶的甘蔗盛产区时，她从未想到自己的丈夫会和两个娶不到老婆的兄弟“共妻”，并生养子女。40多岁的穆尼说：“我的丈夫和公婆逼我做他们兄弟三人的老婆。”当时她穿着黄色的沙丽，坐在印度北方邦巴格帕特区一个村落的活动中心。
穆尼说：“他们不分白天黑夜地折磨我。如果我反抗，他们随手抄起东西就打我。”三个月后，以看医生为借口，穆尼才获准出家门。
“有时他们把我赶出来，让我睡在外面，还朝我泼煤油烧我。”
但警方很少接到报警，因为这些地区的女性通常不准独自出门，而且对受害者来说，这是极大的耻辱。因此在该地区的泥棚村落里，还有更多女性的遭遇和穆尼类似。
穆尼也没有报警。她和丈夫兄弟三人生育了三个儿子。
社工表示，印度的族长文化根深蒂固，几十年来很多女婴被堕胎，这导致印度的巴格帕特等地区女性人数锐减，造成强奸和拐卖人口案例增多，以及兄弟“共妻”现象的出现。
义工表示，在印度很多地区，女婴被堕胎都很普遍。由于信奉“养儿防老”，人们存在重男轻女的传统观念。
儿童慈善团体“印度计划”的执行理事长巴格亚什利 登勒说：“一些地区女性人数减少，我们已经看到了严重后果。”
“我们必须对此引起重视，采取行动，否则印度的女性将一直身处诱拐、强奸，甚至更糟糕的环境中。”
根据印度2011年人口普查，在巴格帕特区，男女性别比为1000比858，而印度全国的性别比为1000比940。
巴格帕特区的儿童性别比更加失衡，而且愈发严重。2011年儿童男女性别比为1000比837，而2001年这一数字为850。
75岁的退休警官什里 钱德说：“在每个村落都至少有五六个男的打光棍。在一些地区，一个家庭里竟然有三四个光棍。问题太严重了。”
（责任编辑:admin）
