Mother-in-Laws

.... (cont) unfortunately, unlike shlawar kameezes and Hrithik Roshan, it is one import we can do without.

There are many girls who are intelligent, well-educated young women who once they enter the marital home get repressed in a different world in which they are often reduced to having to fight for what would be considered basic human rights.

Seema, 24 got married two years ago and has lived with her in laws ever since. And ever since she left her parents house she says her life has been a nightmare in which she has been bullied and degraded by her husband's family. Her situation finally came to a head when she had a miscarriage six weeks ago. She says her in-laws cruelties were to blame for the death of her unborn child.

Seema said: "Ever since I got married, my life has been hell. That is the only word I can think of to describe it. After we got married, me and my husband thought we would wait a couple of years before we started a family but then my mother in law decided I wasn't allowed to work and I had to look after the house instead. Often I wouldn't leave the house for several weeks. Every time I wanted to see my family it would cause a huge row and I wasn't allowed to use the phone.

By evening my body would be aching from all the housework. No matter how much I worked, it was never clean enough. If anybody came to visit she would criticise the food I made. People complain about not having any money, but I was literally penniless and didn't even have enough money to buy a stamp. I started stealing change from my husband's pockets to get things like sweets and magazines.

"I was so lonely and unhappy I thought at least if I had a child it would give me something to live for but while I was pregnant my mother in law stressed me out so much and made me do so much work that I would feel half dead. When I had my miscarriage she made it seem like it was my fault, saying it was probably because I used to pick up my baby brother and the strain of that had caused it.

"However after the miscarriage things are as bad as ever. She humiliates me and calls me fat in front of people. I was four months pregnant when I had the miscarriage so what does she expect me to be like."

With no allies within the family or the.... (cont)