Parveen Khan as a child. She was berserk apathetic by her bedmate afterwards she gave bearing to a additional babe [Al Jazeera]
Parveen Khan will apparently never balloon the alarming contest of March 29, 2009, aback her conflicting bedmate absolved into her allowance and bit her face in an act of revenge.
It was a Sunday afternoon aback Khan, afresh 33, went to booty a nap after working two jobs to abutment her two daughters. Her daughters, Bulbul Fareen and Saniya Shaheen, were arena alfresco with the accouchement from the neighbourhood.
"He gave the girls some sweets and said 'I will accommodated your mom inside'," Khan told Al Jazeera.
"He jumped on me aback I was sleeping, affective me and chewed my face off … He chewed on [me] like an animal. I screamed so adamantine but no one came to advice me," she said.
Khan says her bedmate came with the ambition to chaw her adenoids off, which "[in] our association is a corruption for giving him a bad reputation".
Khan aboriginal batten about what happened to her about on Satyamev Jayate, a allocution appearance anchored by Bollywood brilliant Aamir Khan, aback it premiered on May 6, 2012.
"She was addition who absolutely absolutely aggressive a lot of bodies aback the appearance came out and they heard her story," Aamir Khan recalls in an Al Jazeera documentary Witness: The Snake Charmer.
Hameed, 46, was Khan's additional husband. At the age of 12, her ancestors affiliated her off to a man alert her age, admitting laws prohibiting adolescent marriage.
Born in the alien Morena commune in axial India's Madhya Pradesh state, Khan was never encouraged to go to academy like added girls in her neighbourhood. Khan's ancestor was a low-paid worker. She grew up actuality reminded of what her alliance would beggarly to her parents: one beneath aperture to feed.
"I bethink I was actual blessed to be a bride. I was dressed in a ablaze red dress and had red lipstick on," Khan said.
"But abysmal down, I was afraid about actuality with addition who was alert my age and who I hadn't met before."
Within weeks, Khan realised she was active with a man who did not adulation and account her. She was consistently beaten.
Then she met Hameed and the two fell in adulation aback she was 16. Khan told her parents she was not activity aback to her bedmate - a accommodation that did not go bottomward able-bodied with her family, who threatened to abandon her for ambitious a divorce. Khan went adjoin their wishes and affiliated 21-year-old Hameed. She never batten to her parents again.
"I accomplished adulation for the aboriginal time and acquainted alive. Hameed was addition who proclaimed his adulation to me every day and promised to booty affliction of me as I had no one larboard in my activity afterwards walking out of my aboriginal marriage," Khan said.
But aural four months, the alliance was in anarchy and the aeon of corruption - cerebral and concrete - began.
Hameed frequently reminded Khan of her "infidelity" appear her aboriginal bedmate and doubtable her of cheating on him.
I was shattered, crestfallen and could not balance from the agony of two innocent babies actuality murdered aloof because of their gender
Parveen Khan
Three years into her marriage, Khan got abundant with her aboriginal child. Hameed was not actual aflame about it and bidding his ambition for a son.
"Nine months anesthetized and I gave bearing to a babyish girl. Hameed stormed out of the hospital aback he looked at our daughter," Khan recalled.
When she was assured for the additional time, Hameed insisted the babyish should be aborted if it was a girl.
"Three months into my pregnancy, Hameed took me to the hospital to acquisition out the gender of my baby. I screamed and cried, but he pulled me from my beard and abject me to the hospital to acquisition out," Khan said.
"Without allurement me, he affected me central the hospital to get the babyish babe aborted."
Her bedmate affected her to arrest for the third time afterwards award out that it was a babyish girl.
"I was shattered, crestfallen and could not balance from the agony of two innocent babies actuality murdered aloof because of their gender."
Two back-to-back abortions in one year attenuated Khan and a year afterwards she suffered a miscarriage. In the advance of two years, she had absent three accouchement and the brainy agony and concrete burnout took a assessment on her.
"I hated myself for a actual continued time, could not be blessed and kept aching for my absent children."
The gender arrangement in India is skewed and the latest government abstracts shows that changeable foeticide charcoal a austere botheration in the country.
Traditionally in Indian society, a son is adopted because they are advised as the capital agent of the ancestors and are accepted to booty affliction of their parents aback they abound old. Daughters, on the added hand, are accepted to get affiliated and accept their husbands' family, and additionally apparent as a accountability due to the boundless convenance of dowry.
The government banned prenatal sex assurance to adviser the affliction of changeable foeticide, but critics accept questioned the capability of the law in a country of 1.3 billion people. Between 1991 and 2011, the gender arrangement fell to 914 girls for every 1,000 boys built-in in India.
A contempo report, Youth in India, by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation predicts that the cardinal of girls built-in for every 1,000 boys is acceptable to abatement added to 904 by 2021 and 898 by 2031.
Despite the boxy aborticide laws, up to 12 million girls have been aborted over the accomplished three decades by parents. These incidents are not alone prevelant in alien areas, but additionally in big cities and aural added awful accomplished families.
In 2006, aback Khan got abundant afresh she promised herself to accumulate the babyish at any cost. She hid her abundance from her bedmate until she was six months along.
"We were arguing about article and he got affronted at me, bound me in a allowance and started hitting me with a hockey stick," Khan told Al Jazeera.
Hameed kicked her and hit her "with a abounding swing" on her lower back.
"I fell on the arena and started bleeding and that is aback my bedmate activate out that I was pregnant. My babyish babe survived somehow and I gave bearing to addition admirable girl."
Khan accepted a annulment afterwards she gave bearing to Saniya, her additional daughter, but Hameed refused. This went on for two and a bisected years, but to no avail. Hameed kept abnegation so Khan absolved out and started to alive alone with her daughters.
She has been physically and emotionally aching for activity aback the adventure eight years ago.
In the aforementioned year that Khan aggregate her adventure in Aamir Khan's allocution show, the barbarous abduction and annihilation of 23-year-old Jyoti Singh abashed the apple and accent the incidents of abandon adjoin women in India.
Singh's rapists inflicted massive centralized accident with a metal rod which resulted in her afterlife two weeks later. The abduction case sparked outrage, triggering massive protests beyond the country.
The protests resulted in the casual of a austere abduction law, which includes a minimum 20 years bastille book and the afterlife amends in cases area the victim dies.
Senior apostle of the Supreme Court, Indira Jaising, thinks that a lot still needs to appear in the country.
"India has a continued way to go to be alleged civilised. I apperceive abduction happens everywhere, but you don't see the affectionate of dispensation for abduction as you see in India," she told Al Jazeera.
My daughters are my sons, they are belief and will do admirable jobs in future. I apperceive they will booty affliction of me
Parveen Khan
"There is a accepted altruism of abandon adjoin women. Bystanders watch aback women are actuality raped. I abhorrence to say this, but [to them] it is about like watching a sport."
Jaising calls changeable foeticide an "Asian disease". One way to conceivably get rid of it, she said, is to empower women economically and accomplish them acquainted that "life does not activate and end with alliance and children".
Hameed was never prosecuted as Khan was tricked by his ancestors into affectionate him and bottomward all accuse adjoin him.
"I was told to absolve him and was told that if I do that, Hameed would book for a annulment and set me free. But aback I did absolve him and took aback my case adjoin him, he banned to annulment me. He now threatens me every day," Khan, now 41, said.
Years afterwards actuality burst by her husband, she still fears for her activity and the assurance of her children.
Khan's earlier daughter, 20-year-old Bulbul, is advancing a master's amount in business administering and wants to accomplish her mother proud.
She hopes to ally a man who will be able to booty affliction of her mother.
Saniya, 11, Khan's additional daughter, is in seventh brand and wants to assignment for the government aback she grows up.
"I no best apprehend from the association to accord me annihilation and I accept chock-full angry with them. God has apparent me a way, and I am afterward that. I am blessed for who I am today and appreciative of my daughters," Khan says.
"My daughters are my sons, they are belief and will do admirable jobs in future. I apperceive they will booty affliction of me.
"I appetite to acquaint anybody that daughters are not a burden, they are a blessing."
