41 PHOTO © MIGUEL CANDELApolice did not carry out any investigation and no media
showed interest in her story.INDI A’S SHOCK ING STATISTICS
Janki is only one out of more than 300,000 women each
year who suffer from different forms of gender violence
in India, a country where, according to official statistics
from 2013, a woman is abducted every 10 minutes and
one is raped every 20 minutes. And these figures still
fail to reflect the country’s situation in all its cruelty,
because, as Doreen Reddy, Women Sector Director for
the Rural Development Trust explains, “For every case
reported there is at least another one who has suffered
in silence”.
In fact, according to a government survey conducted
between 2005 and 2006, 51% of men – and, surprisingly,clans are considered. Love, they say, comes with time
and routine.
For Janki and Anand that equation did not yield
its desired result, so their parents demanded that they
cease the relationship and stop seeing each other.
Against their parents’ wishes, the couple decided to
marry in secret. Thus, as tradition dictates, Janki finally
moved into the home of her in-laws in 2006. And so
began another nightmare for her. For unknown reasons,
because she was never allowed to access medical tests,
she was unable to conceive a child.
So, on 23 February 2015, Anand’s parents doused
her with gasoline and set her on fire. Neighbours still
managed to take her to the hospital as she hung by the
thread of her life, but Janki Devi died that very same
night. Despite the complaint lodged by her parents, the
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