By Peerzada Ummer, LiCAS News Reporter

Renuka Singh, a 35-year-old housewife from India’s northern state of Haryana, vividly remembers the ordeal she experienced when she ran away from her in-laws’ house with one of her daughters.

Married for four years, Renuka said she was subjected to extreme abuse from her in-laws because she couldn’t give birth to a boy.

A year after the marriage, she gave birth to a girl. Two years later she had another girl born again, further displeasing her husband’s parents.

“The tortures inflicted upon me were numerous then. I was made to do all the household work of the extended family; even given little food to eat and my daughters were loved by none except me in the family,” Renuka told LiCAS.news.

She claimed her husband often beat her. Meanwhile her two daughters were treated like slaves and denied a basic education.

“When my elder daughter Pari turned three I wanted her to be admitted in a nearby government-run daycare center so that she could begin to learn. I was abused and beaten by my husband for even thinking to have her admitted into the school,” Renuka said.

In time she decided the only way to get out of such a volatile domestic situation was to run away. Sometime last year, in the middle of the night, she quietly collected a few of her belongings, took her youngest daughter and fled.

Renuka took a bus to another city where she had a friend who helped her to get a job of a housemaid and find a place to take shelter. But her troubles were not over.

“My husband and in-laws had forcibly and illegally detained my second daughter, in order to force me to come back to the matrimonial home,” Renuka said.

To help her get custody of her other daughter she was introduced to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) India a Christian legal advocacy organization providing pro-bono legal support to the marginalized, especially for issues related to religious freedom and the sanctity of human life.

“I called them and told them my situation. I told them how ruthlessly I was being treated by my in-laws and that my eldest daughter was been kept as captive by them,” Renuka said.

Lawyers from the faith-based firm later filed Renuka’s petition in the court, seeking custody of the elder daughter, and through the court she was granted interim custody of her daughter.

“My daughter has been reunited with me. There is no happiness more than this,” Renuka said. On Renuka’s behalf ADF has also filed a domestic violence petition against the in-laws.

Tehmina Arora, director, ADF India, said the preference for sons is based on the idea held by many in India that sons are critical to a family’s social survival — for carrying on their lineage and ensuring the family’s financial security.

Arora said that women face extreme societal pressure to produce a son. “Failure to do so would entail bearing the consequences of violence or abandonment in terrifying degrees,” she said.

To read the rest of the story visit https://www.licas.news/2021/02/23/christian-group-helps-women-deal-with-dark-side-of-indias-preference-for-sons/?utm_source=LiCAS.news&utm_campaign=519890d735-LiCAS.news+International+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_273995a56b-519890d735-355458664