“We strongly denounce the normalization of marriage through abduction and systemic violence against women. This is a total denial of an individual’s consent in determining her most important decision in life and a serious affront to the human right to the women” said the CSOs.
TFM Desk
Several Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have unequivocally condemned the “kidnapping, confinement, threat to rape, threat to murder, threat to “Keina Katpa” and forced elopement” of a woman scholar from Manipur studying in New Delhi against her will with one Rajkumar Master Meitei, son of RK Sanajaoba of Mayang Imphal Konchak Mayai Leikai, Imphal West District.
Apunba Manipur Kanba Ima Lup (AMKIL), Extrajudicial Execution Victim Families Association (EEVFAM), GirlUp Manipur, Mingsel Foundation, Human Rights Alert (HRA), Women in Governance Network (WinG) and North-East Women’s Network, in a joint press release stated that the woman was called out by Master on December 12 on the pretext of having lunch at a place in Lilong. She accepted the invitation as they knew each other.
However, Master took her to his aunt’s house in Mayang Imphal, close to his house. Right after lunch, to her utter surprise and beyond expectation, Master’s family coaxed her to marry him.
“She outrightly rejected the proposal. But the family insisted and persuaded her to accept the proposal”, said the CSOs. As tension escalated, she tried to leave the house but they “snatched her phone and locked her in the house”.
Thereafter on the instigation of other members of the family including Master, “forcefully silenced her, assaulted her and even subjected to threats of murder and rape.” She protested the wrongful confinement, which caught the attention of the neighbourhood. But to her utter surprise, no one came to her rescue. Those present there even “trivialized the matter as a family scuffle”.
Even as she vehemently protested, “the family and folks of the locality threatened her that they will perform the “Keina Katpa” ritual and publicly humiliate her. Fortunately, “she survived the ordeal and managed to reach home the next day”. Thereafter, she immediately filed a police complaint at the Singjamei Police station and the investigation is underway now.
“As civil society organisation concerned with gender justice, we are shocked to notice the insensitivity of the family members and local community to the plight of the woman when she protested the forced kidnapping. We strongly denounce the normalization of marriage through abduction and systemic violence against women. This is a total denial of an individual’s consent in determining her most important decision in life and a serious affront to the human right to the women. Archive patriarchal traditions of expecting women to submit to pressure of so called “social norms” should be consigned to the flames of history and we should rebuild an egalitarian society where men and women enjoys equality with the same rights and dignity”, stated the CSOs.