Campaigner against dowry murders (broadcaster Jennifer Arul).

Media exposure could reduce dowry deaths--the murder of young brides whose families fail to give enough dowry to their husbands--and other incidents of sexual harassment in India, says the Indian broadcaster and campaigning journalist Jennifer Arul. In Chinai (formerly Madras), for instance, reported cases of sexual harassment fell from 1,200 in the first six months of 1998 to 560 in the first six months of 1999, she told an international conference of journalists in Chichester, England, recently.

Arul, who is South India bureau chief for New Delhi Television, an independent channel, says she would be thankful if she has been responsible for even one case of avoided harassment, though she is cautious about making overt claims about her influence as a broadcaster. `God doesn't want me to conquer the world,' she says.

One dowry death she covered was that of a 26-year-old Pondicherry woman, only two years after her marriage. The woman was allegedly raped and then murdered by her brother-in-law, in her in-laws' house, and her mother-in-law was involved. She died on the way to hospital. Her brother-in-law claimed that her wounds were self-inflicted and that an intruder had broken into the house.

Arul and her camera team rushed to the hospital, where the brother-in-law feigned sickness in front of the camera. The story was broadcast the next morning. `All the women's movements surrounded the hospital, up in arms,' Arul says. `We forced the authorities to arrest him and his mother. They are now in jail, due for trial. The media outcry forced the authorities to act.'

Without such coverage, the police too often do nothing in a culture of dowry-giving that sometimes demands extortionate sums from the bride's family, even years after the wedding, Arul says.

Arul admits that in her broadcast she failed to emphasize `the very core of the story--this young woman had been raped and murdered because her family had not parted with money'. The boy's family were rich diamond merchants and offered Arul a huge amount of money not to follow up the story. She says she was tempted to accept the cash, `but how could I sleep at night?' after hearing the dead woman's mother `screech and collapse' when the broadcast was first aired.

`These stories oppress me a great deal,' she says. `The authorities have tried to shut me up. But that, for me, is not even an issue.'

Arul was speaking at a conference organized by Gegrapha, a Washington-based group of Christians in journalism. (http://www.gegrapha.org/)