Click to play videoBangalore For any normal 14 year old life would probably be all about school play and hobbies at best.
But for Swati (name changed), it's about making a cruel choice that was forced on her. She delivered a child after being raped. Here is the story of Swati. Some names in the report have been changed to protect the identity.
Her one-day-old daughter is crying, but Swati has little idea what to do. At 14, this mother in Bangalore is barely out childhood herself.
Ten months back, Swati was raped, she says, by a 45-year man named Muniyappa, someone her family had known for 25 years. Swati's family is now distraught, and even as her mother Selvi, a daily wage labourer, rocks the baby to sleep, she insists that they can't afford the child.
Victims mother S Selvi says, "We want to give the baby away. We can't keep it, we will give it to someone who can take care of the child, unlike us."
Swati lives with her family in a one-room house in this slum in Jogpalya. Her mother says they found out about the pregnancy only in May, when Swati was already four months pregnant - too late for an abortion.
Swati says she was against filing a case against Muniyappa as he had had threatened to harm the family. But her mother went ahead and registered a case immediately.
Swati says, "He needs to be punished severely."
Muniyappa, who has been in judicial custody since May, also has another case of attempt to rape registered against him. The Karnataka women's commission has said they will take up the case.
The victim's family has been running from one police station to another hoping for justice.
However they fear that Muniyappa will be out on bail soon. And till law takes its own course, this family is left, literally holding the baby.
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