FIELD PRODUCER/RESEARCH
Hosted by Lisa Ling, this short film exposes the truth behind the burning deaths that claim thousands of women’s lives in India every year.
Women don’t usually talk freely about being burned by their husbands when their families can’t pay dowries, because they fear being killed. Many women say they are burned because of a stove burst, but that is usually far from the truth. On any given day, at least three or four women are admitted to this hospital with more than half of their bodies burned. Lisa said the stench of their flesh was overwhelming and the sound of their pain was heartbreaking. “From the second I walked into this room, I felt like I was in a place where a war had struck,” Lisa says. “The fact is that many of them will not live to leave the hospital, and this happens everyday.”
What happens to the survivors? Says Donna Fernandes, who works with the women’s organization Vimochana that works with the burn victims, “You become a burden, you become a nuisance. You feel not accepted by the family, the husband, not by society.”