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New laws to stop runaway grooms
Saying enough is enough, the state government of Punjab in India is finally offering some real help to stop Non-resident Indians (NRIs), including scores from Canada from abandoning their brides and leaving them to lives of destitute in their homeland.
The Punjab government is planning to bring a “strict” legislation in the forthcoming budget session, Indian media reported.
A "strict law" will be introduced to check frauds being committed by NRIs grooms, who desert their wives after marriage and disappear, Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab Sukhbir Singh Badal said last week.
Sukhbir was speaking after inaugurating a helpline for women in distress, 'crime against women'.
An official release quoting Sukhbir said: "Punjab would not tolerate anybody committing fraud with innocent Punjabi girls, and we are fully committed to check such malpractices."
He said the new law would stipulate complete verification of NRIs seeking to marry a Punjabi girl, a compulsory registration of such marriages, besides getting details about NRI from Indian consulates located in that country from where he has come.
Sukhbir said it was very painful to note that Doaba region has witnessed most of such fraud marriages by NRIs and deserted wives had to run from pillar to post to seek justice.
A large segment of Canada’s South Asian community hails from this region.
He said that he has given orders to conduct census of such deserted wives and districts have been told to workout funds required to provide legal assistance to them.
The deputy chief minister said after working out the details he would consolidate the list of victims, provide them legal support, contact the concerned Indian consulate through External Affairs Ministry to track the guilty groom and bring him to justice.
Expressing concern over the incidents of domestic violence with the women he said that this new helpline would be monitored by Inspector General of Police and women would be given justice in a time bound manner.
He also announced the direct recruitment of 2,000 women Police Inspectors.
Sukhbir said they would be in-charge of women police stations in all the districts. He said that new recruitment would be made within six months.
Member of Parliament Harsimrat Kaur Badal said that names and photographs of erring NRI families should be put on a website so that such families mend their ways under social pressure.
The announcement comes in the wake of a conference in Edmonton, Alberta this week entitled International Migration, Honour Crimes and Canadian Law.
This Conference is part of a twenty four month project spearheaded by the Indo-Canadian Women’s Association to reduce violence against women and girls by mobilizing the community to have zero tolerance for honour based crimes, making a case for stricter enforcement of criminal law by empowering girls and women who are vulnerable to honour violence and crimes.
Among those who attended were professionals, practitioners and students across the following sectors: justice, law, enforcement, social and settlement services, health, education, faith organizations, victim advocates, policy and research professionals.
One of the panelist’s was Fabian Dawson, who is the deputy Editor-in-Chief of The Province newspaper in Vancouver.
In July 2006, a team led by Dawson won several national and international awards for a newspaper series titled Abandoned Brides, which investigated the plight of women left behind in India by their foreign husbands.
“It is about time the abandoned brides of India, especially in Punjab got some real help,” Dawson told the South Asian Post.
“Some say the issue of abandoned brides is not a Canadian problem but an Indian one.
I beg to differ,” Dawson told the conference.
“There are various dimensions to the Indian abandoned bride phenomena that erupts in domestic abuse and violence in Canada. It is normally in the background and difficult to detect. But it is there.”
Go to www.southasianpost.com to see our coverage over the years on India’s Abandoned brides
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