Women's Human Rights

This month’s Amnesty International Book Club pick, Secret Daughter, is a touching story of three women, worlds apart but entwined through circumstance, loss and love.  In telling these stories, author Shilpi Somaya Gowda sheds light upon gender discrimination and its shocking impact upon the women whose rights are ignored.

Gender discrimination

Secret Daughter offers powerful insights into how Indian society values women and girls. In a culture that favors sons, minutes after the birth, Kavita’s husband takes her first born daughter away. Kavita dares not ask what happened to her baby; whether she was drowned, buried or simply left to starve. She only hoped the death came quickly. In the home she shared with her husband’s family she was given scornful glances and uninvited counsel on how to conceive a boy the next time.