The BBC reported yesterday that Bangladesh court sentenced three people to death for the murder of a pregnant woman who was unable to pay her dowry. The woman’s husband, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law all face capital punishment, though they are planning to appeal their sentence.
Bridal dowries were outlawed in Bangladesh to avoid precisely this sort of crime, but nonetheless women’s rights organizations in Bangladesh claim that more than 200 women are killed annually because they can’t afford to pay their husbands’ families a dowry.
Source:
Bangladesh dowry killers sentenced. The BBC, November 26, 2000.