Bucking Convention: How Indian courts have internalized CEDAW
Bucking Convention: How Indian courts have internalized CEDAW
May 28, 2021
Sarita Skagnes was born in a small village in Northern India as the third daughter in her family. Based on the perceived lack of honor and value that she brought to her family due to her gender, Skagnes’s parents exchanged her for a male cousin and left her to live with her aunt. Skagnes’s story, while appalling in its own right, is a common one for women and girls in India. In fact, a 2018 Thomson Reuters study deemed India the “most dangerous country for women” based on sexual violence, economic opportunity, and cultural attitudes that devalue female life.