Deccan Chronicle; Wednesday December 01, 2010,
Nov. 30: Domestic violence has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 young women across the state in the last two years, officials have said. A sizeable number of victims were dalits in rural areas. Though suicide is the reason behind a large number of ‘unnatural deaths’ of young women below the age of 25, dowry harassment, murders and ‘suspicious’ deaths are other reasons as are ‘accidents’.
A set of RTI queries has revealed that backward districts Vellore and Villupuram, which have a sizeable dalit population, are first and second in the list of maximum deaths of young women. Vellore district accounts for 378 deaths of young women, out of a total of 3,222 across the state between January 2008 and June 2010.
Villupuram and Tirunelveli come second and third with 242 and 219 deaths. “A total of seven honour killings have been reported in the state in the past three years but most such incidents go unnoticed or unrecorded. Caste and family honour could be the reason behind some of the cases of suicide, suspicious deaths and even accidents,” fears A. Kathir, executive director of Evidence.
Of the total 3,222 deaths, a maximum of 2,182 were suicide cases of which 500 women were from the dalit community. Dowry deaths account for 6 per cent (197 cases) of the total unnatural deaths reported during the period. In this too, Vellore district topped the chart with 25 cases. A total of 179 cases have been reported as suspicious deaths and murders out of 3,222.
“A majority of the victims were from rural backgrounds. Women of socially and economically backward districts such as Vellore, Villupuram, Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur in northern TN and Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi in the south were identified to be more vulnerable,” Mr Kathir said.
Reacting to the issue, renowned rights activist and HC lawyer Sudha Ramalingam said lack of anonymity and financial independence besides absence of intervention programmes like counselling make rural women more vulnerable.
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