Violence against Adolescent Girls: Impact of Harmful Socio-Cultural Practices
Harmful traditional practices are the types of violence that have historically been committed against women in general and certain communities and societies for so long that these abuses are considered a part of accepted cultural practice. These may lead to death, disabilities, and physical and psychological dysfunction for millions of women annually. This paper focuses on the harmful socio-cultural practices impacting adolescent girl’s wellbeing and mortality at the adolescent phase of her life. This phase of an Indian female child is marked with brutal violence. It attempts to bring awareness of the selected harmful socio-cultural practices that impact adolescent girls such as FGM, early marriage, adolescent pregnancy, dress codes prescribed by the society, practices related to menstruation and related health and hygiene issues, marriage by abduction, and virginity testing. This paper gives an informative overview of the harmful practices rooted in our socio-cultural milieu from secondary review of literature and articles published in leading English daily newspapers. It aims to fulfil a scholarly gap in research on this issue as well as to bring it in mainstream discussion among the different stakeholders so as to tackle the issue of the culturally sanctioned harmful practices impacting adolescents’ girls.
Parveen Pannu