Violence against women
During the time of partition, 75,000 women are thought to have been abducted and raped, usually by men of different religions from their own. Women were forced to have sex with men of the other religion to undermine the so-called ‘purity’ of their race. Some women were publicly paraded and some had their bodies mutilated or tattooed with marks of the other religion. Many of these women became pregnant and bore children who were forcibly taken away from them. Some older women whose husbands had been killed had their property stolen and others were kidnapped and used as servants by other families. Male family members sometimes killed female relatives to protect them from being victims of crime undertaken by males of the other community.
In 1947 the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan issued a joint declaration specifying that both governments would not recognise forced conversions and marriages, and every effort must be made by governments to trace those abducted and restore them to their families. Both agreed to set up processes to rescue abducted women and the operation became known as the Central Recovery Operation. This included bringing back women living with men of other religions, by force if necessary, to their ‘own homes’. These homes were seen as the place of their religion; Pakistan for Muslims and India for Hindus and Sikhs. At the time of partition, every citizen could theoretically choose which country to belong to, however, abducted women were not given such choice.