Some fathers consider it their worst nightmare to find out their daughters have been sexually active, but I didn’t think anyone would ever actually ban women from using cellphones in order to curb this natural phenomenon.
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That’s not the case among the elders in the town of Madora in Uttar Pradesh, India though, who have full on banned people from using cellphones in a bid to cut down on unmarried women having sex. They specifically stated that the rule was introduced to stop women contacting men in order to have sex with them.
Any woman in the area caught using a phone outside of the privacy of their own home will either be fined $325 or subject to a brutal beating in extreme cases amongst repeat offenders. They’re also no longer allowed to wear jeans in public and face the same punishment as well if caught doing this.
The ruling came from the village panchayat (council), whose 45 year old spokeswoman Gaffar Khan said the following:
The girls in our village are not much educated. We fear they might be led to a ‘wrong path’ and so to prevent it, restrictions are being imposed on girls to not use mobile phones in public or while walking through the village lanes.
We are coming up with reformative steps to ‘clean’ the image of Madora village which is o1therwise infamous for cheating people. So the local police or administration should not have any objection to the decisions of the panchayat.
Doesn’t sound like she’s taking no for an answer. While the concept of banning cellphone use to limit sexual activity is kind of funny from afar, in reality it’s an awful restriction on human rights and probably not even going to achieve anything – guys are probably the sex pests in most of these situations and they’ll probably just change their tactics to chirpsing them on the street or in their houses, which is probably even worse. The women can still text and call people in their homes too so it seems kind of stupid.
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This is a view shared by the Police Chief Arun Kumar Singh, who is refusing to uphold them:
These laws are unconstitutional. Nobody should be allowed to restrict freedom of any individual, be they male or female.
We will take action against any such complaint wherein a girl is restrained or is penalised for using a mobile phone and no panchayat would be allowed to dictate the rights of women.
At least someone over there has some sense. Or maybe he’s having an affair with someone and needs to use a cellphone to contact her.
Either way, it sounds like a bit of a mess over there if the village council and police force are in direct conflict. Hope that gets sorted out sooner or later and women aren’t oppressed as a result of any resolution.
For more evidence of how backwards India can be, check out some of these sex education questions and answers. Guaranteed to crack you up.
