Dowry abuse is financial coercion linked to marriage. It happens when money, jewellery, cars, property, household goods, wedding costs or other demands are used to pressure, control, humiliate or harm a woman. India criminalised dowry through the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, but dowry-related deaths continue to be recorded more than six decades later. The death of Twisha Sharma in Bhopal has now brought this hidden violence back into international focus.
Twisha Sharma, a 33-year-old actor and model, was found dead in her matrimonial home on 12 May 2026, five months after her marriage. Her family has alleged dowry harassment and abuse. Her husband and mother-in-law deny wrongdoing. Police have registered a dowry death case, and the investigation remains active. Recent reports state that the Madhya Pradesh High Court has ordered a second post-mortem and that the state government has moved for a CBI investigation.
The legal process must establish the facts. Allegations are not convictions. But this case has already exposed a wider truth: too many women are still expected to enter marriage with a price attached to their peace.
What is dowry?
Dowry is property, money, jewellery, goods or other valuable assets given, agreed to be given, or demanded in connection with marriage. Under India’s Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, dowry includes property or valuable security given directly or indirectly by one party, by parents, or by another person in connection with the marriage.
Historically, dowry was often described as a form of support for a daughter entering married life. Families might provide jewellery, furniture, clothing, land, household goods or money. Some saw it as security. Others saw it as duty, status or custom.
But what is defended as tradition can become coercion.
Today, dowry does not always look like an old-fashioned exchange of jewellery and household items. It can appear as demands for cars, property deposits, luxury goods, business investment, full houses, expensive wedding events or continuing financial support after marriage.
I have spoken to parents in the UK and elsewhere who have remortgaged, re-kitted or sold their homes because they believed it was the only way to secure a peaceful life for their daughter.
One father told me he would rather go into debt than see his daughter blamed, ridiculed or mistreated by the groom’s family. That is the cruelty of dowry abuse. It sells parents the promise of their daughter’s happiness while making her safety conditional on payment.
This is not confined to rural villages or poorer families. Dowry pressure can exist in wealthy, educated and highly status-conscious families too. Sometimes it appears as an extravagant wedding. Sometimes it appears as a “gift”. Sometimes it appears as property help. Sometimes it appears as the expectation that the bride’s family must fund a lifestyle.
The form changes. The control does not.
What is dowry abuse?
Dowry abuse is not simply a dispute about money.
It is a pattern of pressure and control where a woman is made responsible for satisfying financial expectations attached to marriage. It may include insults, threats, humiliation, violence, isolation, demands on her parents, punishment by in-laws, pressure to stay silent, or blame when expectations are not met.
At its core, dowry abuse sends one brutal message: a woman’s safety depends on what her family can provide.
That is not marriage.
That is control.
Why daughters are treated as a burden
The most painful part of dowry abuse is what it says about daughters.
When parents feel forced to pay for their daughter’s acceptance, the daughter is made to feel like a liability. Her birth becomes a future debt. Her marriage becomes a financial negotiation. Her happiness becomes something her family must purchase.
This is heartbreaking because it teaches girls that love is conditional and safety is negotiable.
Dowry abuse does not only impoverish families. It wounds daughters long before marriage. It tells them they are expensive, risky, difficult to place and dependent on what others are willing to accept.
That thinking belongs nowhere. Not in India. Not in the UK. Not in wealthy homes. Not in professional families. Not in any community that claims to value women.
Why this is not only an India issue
It is easy to treat dowry abuse as an overseas problem. That is wrong.
I have heard about dowry pressure in the UK and across Western communities. It may not always be called dowry. It may be described as gifts, contribution, wedding support, family expectation, property help or “what is normally done”. But the pressure can be the same.
Parents may take on debt because they fear their daughter will be blamed. Families may fund weddings they cannot afford because refusal would cause shame. A daughter may be told to tolerate cruelty because her parents have already given everything.
Dowry abuse travels through silence, expectation and reputation.
It can exist in educated homes, affluent homes, professional homes and diaspora communities. It may be hidden behind respectability. It may sit behind a beautiful wedding, a polished family image or a public show of success.
The question is not whether a family looks modern.
The question is whether the woman is free.
Why women are judged after death
One of the most disturbing patterns in cases involving violence against women is what happens after the woman dies.
The questions often turn towards her.
Was she unstable?
Was she difficult?
Was she too independent?
Was she modern?
Was she obedient?
Was she a good wife?
A woman’s death should not become a referendum on her character.
When attention shifts from harm to reputation, the violence around her becomes easier to minimise. Her fear becomes weakness. Her pain becomes a personality flaw. Her resistance becomes disobedience.
This pattern is not limited to dowry cases. It appears in domestic abuse, forced marriage, coercive control and dishonour abuse. The language changes. The mechanism is familiar.
The woman is judged.
The family is protected.
The system survives.
Dowry abuse and dishonour abuse
Dowry abuse is not the same as forced marriage, FGM or domestic abuse. However, these harms can overlap when marriage, reputation, obedience and family pressure are used to control women and girls.
At Freedom Charity, we use the term dishonour abuse because there is no honour in controlling, threatening or harming someone. Honour is the language often used to excuse abuse. Dishonour is the reality experienced by victims.
Dowry abuse can sit inside the same architecture of control.
A woman may fear shame if she speaks out. Parents may fear stigma if the marriage fails. Abuse may be minimised as adjustment. Financial demands may be disguised as custom. A daughter may be told to protect the family name even when the family name is being used against her.
That is why safeguarding professionals must understand the pattern, not just the label.
The numbers should shame us
Dowry deaths are not rare. Recent reporting based on India’s National Crime Records Bureau data states that India recorded 5,737 dowry deaths in 2024. That is close to 16 women a day.
Each number was once a woman.
A woman with a name, a voice, a family, a future and a life beyond the circumstances of her death.
Statistics can numb the public. They should not. A death does not become less urgent because many women died before. The scale of the problem is precisely why it must be named without politeness.
Why law alone is not enough
India has had dowry legislation since 1961. The law matters. But law alone cannot dismantle a culture of silence.
A law can criminalise dowry. It cannot, by itself, stop families from disguising demands as gifts.
A law can punish cruelty. It cannot protect women if warning signs are ignored.
A law can name an offence. It cannot save a daughter if everyone tells her to adjust.
This is the global lesson.
Whether the issue is dowry abuse, forced marriage, domestic abuse, FGM, coercive control or dishonour abuse, women are most at risk in the gap between what the law says and what families, communities and institutions actually do.
The harder question is not only: what is illegal?
The harder question is: who acts before a woman is dead?
The Twisha Sharma case and the wider question
The investigation into Twisha Sharma’s death must proceed through evidence, law and due process. No article should replace a court. No headline should decide guilt.
But the wider question cannot be ignored.
How many women are still expected to pay for acceptance inside marriage?
How many parents are pushed into debt because they believe money will buy their daughter peace?
How many families disguise coercion as custom?
How many daughters are treated as burdens before they are treated as human beings?
How many women are judged more harshly than the systems that failed to protect them?
Dowry abuse is not a misunderstanding about gifts.
It is financial coercion tied to marriage, status and control.
And when women die inside systems built on silence, the first question should never be whether they were perfect.
It should be why they were not safe.
Dowry abuse is a form of coercive control linked to marriage. It occurs when money, jewellery, property, cars, wedding costs or other financial demands are used to pressure, control, humiliate or harm a woman. India criminalised dowry through the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, but dowry deaths continue. The death of Twisha Sharma in Bhopal has renewed global debate about dowry abuse, women’s safety, coercive control and dishonour abuse.
Twisha Sharma case:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g5y17d1rpo
Second post-mortem:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/has-to-done-at-the-earliest-hc-orders-second-post-mortem-in-twisha-sharma-death-case/articleshow/131260708.cms
CBI investigation:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/madhya-pradesh-govt-recommends-cbi-probe-in-trisha-sharma-death-case/articleshow/131257685.cms
Bar Council suspension:
https://m.economictimes.com/news/india/twisha-sharma-death-case-bar-council-suspends-absconding-advocate-husband-samarth-singh-from-legal-practice/articleshow/131265332.cms
Dowry Prohibition Act 1961:
https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/1679?locale=en
Freedom Charity links to add:
Freedom Charity dowry abuse:
https://freedomcharity.org.uk/dowry-abuse/
Freedom Charity dishonour abuse:
https://freedomcharity.org.uk/dishonour-abuse/
Freedom Charity forced marriage:
https://freedomcharity.org.uk/forced-marriage/
Freedom Charity homepage:
https://freedomcharity.org.uk/
By Aneeta Prem MBE
London, UK, 22 May 2026
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