A Girl in the River

After watching the documentary ‘A Girl in the River,’ I was shocked by the perspectives that were given. The perspectives that challenged my thinking the most were the perspective of the elders in the community and the perspectives of the Saba’s father and uncle. The perspective of the elders was that Saba should forgive her uncle and father and that the two families should reach a ‘compromise’ quickly; i.e forgive them and drop the case as “the society doesn’t respect people whose daughters run away.” “Parents have the right to decide if their children have a future.” Society pressured Saba into dropping the case and releasing her father and uncle from jail and this shocked me. The fact that it would be wrong in society to imprison them and prosecute them even though Saba said: “In my heart, I will never forgive them.”

The perspective of the father and uncle really shocked me as they were justifying that they had tried to murder Saba saying that they were “obliged” to do it to restore honour to their family. What is honourable about murdering someone? He also said that when he told his wife he killed their daughter that she had to “accept it as I am her husband, she is just my wife.” With all the talk of respect and restoring respect, you’d think that they would value each other and respect each other. It disgusts me to think people would think that they could murder and get away with it, as well as be more respected than they were before. This also raises the issue of gender equality with many of the women in the documentary simply having to accept what the men tell them. Many perspectives in this documentary really shocked me as well as the fact that it was allowed to happen.