The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed police to provide protection to a 23-year-old gay woman, who on Sunday fled her marital home in the capital after attempting experimental “treatment” for her parents’ sexual orientation. was.
The woman stated in her plea that she had forcibly married a man in 2019, despite having told her parents about her sexual orientation and her identity as a lesbian on several occasions. She said that her parents and extended family refused to acknowledge, accept and respect her sexuality and instead insisted that homosexuality was a disease that required her to be cured.
In her petition filed through advocates Vrinda Grover and Sautik Banerjee, she said that her previous attempts to end marital relations with her husband were not successful. “Never been married. The petition states that due to one or the other excuse, the petitioner’s husband delayed breaking the news to his family and the petitioner continued to live a life of misery.
‘Family Insult’
Things began to get difficult for her in early 2021, when her in-laws stopped allowing her to talk to her friends over the phone and began to control all of her social relationships. Her parents also told her that divorcing her due to her husband’s sexual orientation would embarrass the family and would be an insult to her in society. She was told that for family honor she would have to live with her husband as his wife and continue to serve her in-laws.
On March 7, her mother telephoned to inform her that she had contacted a religious guru, who would “cure” her of her sexual orientation. Her mother said that she was going to take the material objects attached to her, and the religious guru would undertake a conversion therapy using mental intervention to change her sexual orientation. “For fear of his safety, the petitioner decided to leave his marital life on the same day. The family members said that his family cannot find him and should force him to undergo rituals and ceremonies, ”the petition said.
She approached an NGO-Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD), demanding a safe house. The NGO then informed the local police station that he had left his matrimonial home on his own and approached his office for help.
The petition stated that the police, “in violation of the law and in violation of their statutory obligations, leaked notice of the petitioner’s escape from his Matrimonial Home and also leaked contact details of ANADAD NGO cadres to the petitioner’s father and other family. done. Member “.
The petition states that the woman’s father-in-law serves in the Border Security Force (BSF) and her husband is in the India Air Force (IAF), and enjoys “significant conflict”.
Justice Mukta Gupta, while looking at the plea, directed the police not to harass or harm the members of any NGO for helping him. The court also issued a notice to the Delhi government on the petition.
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