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| Why Rekha from Jodhpur is a bonafid |
| Why Rekha from Jodhpur is a bonafide braveheart
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| INDIA
, 19-June-2012
4:49:40 AM |
| Rekha Kumari's bedroom is like that of any 20-year-old. She has college books scattered around, a reminder of the college exams she has just taken. Dressed in an onion pink salwaar-kameez, she still appears tense. It's not the results of her 2nd year BA exams that worry her. She has received threats from others in her home town, Peepar, in Rajasthan's Jodhpur district. All because she refuses to marry a man she was engaged to as a five-year-old.
Rekha has asked the authorities for protection and the police have assured her full cooperation. They have given a formal, written warning to the boy and his family not to threaten Rekha or her family. The police have also told Rekha to call them immediately if they ever need any help
Rekha's decision to reject her child marriage has provoked hostility. Her parents support her decision to move court and have her marriage annulled.
When she was five, her grandfather got her engaged to a boy who was just nine, related to a man he knew. Rekha was married to him in 1997. She has met him just twice since then.
Rekha says she cannot imagine a life with him. He is a school dropout, and rides buses as an assistant to the driver. "He drinks a lot and he's constantly threatening my daughter that he will not only abduct Rekha but even her mother. And since he is hardly educated he has no professional future," says Rekha's father, Ram Lal Chaudhary.
"When I go to college, he follows me, abuses me and says he will get me abducted if I don't marry him," she says.
It's not just their incompatibility that is a matter of concern. Despite strict laws, child marriages continue to take place in this part of Rajasthan; families are expected to honour them.
The local panchayat is pressuring Rekha's family to give up its court case.
"We have warned the people in the village not to pressurize this family. We have specifically warned the boy and his family not to try to pressurize Rekha or her family.
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