YAD starts movement against dowry

Many take part in signature campaign held in the City

Youth Against Dowry (YAD), a platform of Muslim youth, started its movement to make the community free from the dowry menace through a signature campaign.

Since dowry is one of the major issue threatening the community, the main objective of the organisation is to eradicate dowry from all Jama Aths in Dakshina Kannada district through campaigns and protests.

YAD president Farhan Mohammed launched the campaign near Idgah Juma Masjid at Light House Hill here on Friday.

He said that the organisation will continue its fight against the evil custom that prevails in the community.

“Taking dowry is a punishable offence under the Dowry Prevention Act of 1961. One can imagine the strong hold this evil has in the society considering a fact that it still continues to exist despite such a strong law being in place. Seeing this we have taken up the challenge of fighting against dowry.

We will meet people, religious leaders and we will also make youth take pledge that they will not take dowry,” he said.

As a part of the campaign, YAD will also screen a documentary named ‘Urulu’, which speaks about plight of few Muslim families in the region who have become victims of dowry. The documentary will be shown at various parts of the district, if Jama Ath members take initiatives to make arrangements, he said.

Speaking about the ill-affects of dowry he said that several young girls have been made to discontinue education because the parents have the responsibility of getting them married off.

Further there are several parents who have taken loan from banks to pay dowry to the groom. “All this and more needs to be spoken eloquently and this evil system should stop somewhere,” he said.

Those who are interested to take part in the movements of YAD may SMS their name, Jama Ath and address to 9844462168. Community members can share their views against dowry by joining the facebook page of YAD too, Farhan said.

Taluk and village-level branches of YAD will also be opened to carry forward the movement.
Nearly 100 youth from the community have already signed for the campaign at Puttur, he said adding that a branch will be opened at Puttur soon.