(ANS - Hyderabad) - Forced marriages are one of the obstacles that keep many women all over the world from effectively exercising their rights. The Salesian Family is working to eliminate this injustice. Here is part of the testimony of a young Indian girl rescued by the Salesians.

I am a girl from a village of Andhra Pradesh in India.  I am 22 years old. I am not saying my name because my family hates me for speaking to you. I am the youngest of eight children. My father left us when I was very small. My mother struggled to feed us. She worked as a coolie in the fields (a daily-wage labourer).

One day, the Salesian sisters of Don Bosco visited our village. They became a source of mercy for me. They took me with them. I stayed with them and studied up to grade ten. When I returned home after that, my family asked me to stop studying and get married immediately. They feared that, if I were better educated, I would want a better husband, which would mean giving a higher dowry. And that we could not afford.

I refused to marry so young. I wanted to study more. I pleaded with my mother and she changed her mind. My brothers threatened to stop supporting me and my mother. Then they gave me a good thrashing.

One day, I ran away to Vijayawada, to Navajeevan Bala Bhavan, which is a Don Bosco’s Home for Children. The director, Fr. Koshy Thomas, was the second source of mercy for me. He took me to the Government’s District Child Welfare Committee. They called my mother, brothers and even my father. They promised that I could continue my studies. But, back home, the entire family started abusing me. My sisters were also against me because they had married very young, too. 

They said I was a shame on the family, by remaining unmarried at my age. They even discussed killing me, to remove this shame. My mother was as helpless as me, because she was just a woman, abandoned by her own husband.

When another boy was brought to marry me, I ran away again to Fr. Koshy. He admitted me into a course in Computer Science and Engineering. I studied well and I was the topper in my class. While I was in college, not a single member of my family ever came to see me or inquired about me. They considered me dead. In spite of all they had done to me, I forgave them.

(…) I had several reasons for refusing to get married. I want to study. I was too young to be a wife and mother. Above all, I was being FORCED to get married, not just advised or requested to. I did not feel respected.

Published 08/03/2016