A report conducted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has found that 5,000 women in India are killed each year for not bringing enough dowry to their marriages. While the use of dowries – money and goods women bring to a marriage – is illegal in India, custom still pervades in much of the country. Often women who do not bring enough to a marriage are killed in kitchen fires, which are passed off as accidents. The continued existence of the custom also leads poor families to kill young daughters because they cannot afford the large gifts necessary to get them married.
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