A young woman in India has been divorced by her husband after she admitted that she had been gang raped by their neighbours. The young mother who was only twenty five has been forced to leave the family home by her husband and mother in law. They also kept her four year old son.

In Sharia law Men can divorce their wife in an instance if they say the word ‘talaq’ three times. Her construction worker husband who works in Dubai text her the phrase shortly after hearing about the rape.

In an interview with the Daily Mail the unnamed woman described how she felt after her husband ended their five year marriage via text.

“When I read the message I went numb. I couldn’t believe what I had read. Just three words; talaq, talaq, talaq. This is the last thing I was expecting from my husband of five years after I confided in him about what happened.

I felt violated. I thought that he would stand by my side through this, to help me through the pain of it. But I was wrong. He took the easiest way out like a coward and divorced me with text message. It took him five seconds to end a five-year relationship.

Overnight I became an outcast from my whole family. I could have survived even that, but then they snatched away my last hope – my only child. I have completely lost the desire to live.”

She has now moved back in with her parents and has had to leave her child behind:

Her mother in law showed little sympathy:

“My son has divorced his wife, so she has no right to live with us. That’s the law. She no longer belongs to us, but the child is part of our family’s lineage. We can’t let him go with her.”

The use of the ‘talaq’ rule is on the rise in India, ensuring that numerous women feel very insecure in their marriages. A number of Muslim scholars have campaigned for the rule to be changed but nothing looks like it’s going to happen in the near future. Generally speaking, the treatment of woman in India is awful.

In 2013 there was 309,546 crimes against woman and that is only a small proportion of the crimes that have actually been committed:

India is fast becoming a global powerhouse in the world, but countries shouldn’t allow them onto the top table until their treatment of woman improves. There has been a significant rise in cases of abuse in recent years, but this is being put down to woman being better educated than they previously were:

A campaigner for woman’s rights Ms Sharma said:

“It’s not that there is more violence now: violence was always there, but now there is more reporting. Education levels have gone up, many women are now financially independent and there’s more awareness”

The abuse of Woman occurs all around the world, but in India there is a culture of silence that still surrounds it and this needs to change. If you’d be interested in supporting a charity who promotes woman rights in the area you should check out ‘empowering woman‘ they do great work in the area.