KOCHI/T’PURAM: Two days after suggesting an anti-dowry bond from college students before awarding them degrees or diploma, governor Arif Mohammad Khan on Friday mooted the plan to collect similar bonds signed by parents too at the time of their children’s admission in higher educational institutions. Khan said that it was the vice-chancellors who suggested the idea during a meeting convened by him in Kochi.
Khan said faculties appointed in universities should also give a similar undertaking on dowry.
“I am so happy that VCs suggested that parents will have to sign the anti-dowry bond at the time of admission. Demanding dowry is repugnant not only to womanhood, but to human dignity too. The suggestions made by VCs will be compiled after another round of meeting in Thiruvananthapuram on July 21,” he said.
Khan said that whatever a father wants to do for his daughter at the time of her marriage shouldn’t have anything to do with the bridegroom and his family.
Earlier, while inaugurating Platinum Jubilee celebrations of St Albert’s College, Khan requested students to not give, receive or demand dowry in marriage. “Education is supposed to give one a sense of right and wrong and the degrees a person secures are not for increasing his or her price in the marriage market,” he said. Khan added that elected representatives should ensure that dowry is not demanded or accepted if they get an invitation for marriage.
Dowry prohibition officers in all districts
Meanwhile, the government appointed dowry prohibition officers in all districts as part of the initiatives adopted by the government to prevent the practice of dowry, said Veena George, health and women and child development minister.
The appointment has been made after amending the dowry prohibition rules, the minister said. Earlier, dowry prohibition officers were present only in Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam and Kozhikode zones. The number of posts of dowry prohibition officers have been raised to 14 by amending the rules, and re-designating district officers of women and child development as dowry prohibition officers, the minister said. The director of the women and child development department will be the chief dowry prohibition officer.
