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Cash promised to fight India's social scourge
India's abandoned brides will be getting some cash to go after their foreign based husbands.
The ministry of overseas Indian affairs announced this month that it will provide financial assistance ranging from $2000 to $3000 to the deserted or divorced overseas Indian women for arranging legal assistance in their fight against NRI (Non-Resident Indian) grooms.
The same amounts will also be given to the legal counsel of the applicant or Indian Community Association or Women's organisation or the NGO concerned to enable it to take steps to assist the woman in documentation and preparatory work for filing the case.
The scheme would be available in cases where:
• The marriage of the woman has been solemnized in India or overseas with an overseas Indian or a foreigner;
• The woman is deserted in India or overseas within fifteen years of the marriage; or
where divorce proceedings are initiated within fifteen years of marriage by her overseas Indian or foreign husband;
• An ex-parte divorce has been obtained by the overseas Indian or foreign husband within twenty years of marriage and a case for maintenance and alimony is to be filed by her.
The release said the scheme would not be available to a woman having a criminal case against her, provided that a criminal charge of parental child abduction shall not be a bar if the custody of the child has not yet been adjudicated upon.
The Indian ministry has also brought out a guidance booklet on Marriages to Overseas Indians which contains information on safeguards available to women deserted by their NRI spouses, legal remedies available, authorities that can be approached for redressal of grievances.
Last March, the South Asian Post reported that in a concerted effort to stop the social scourge that has left over 30,000 women desperate and looking for their husbands, a government team in the town of Jalandhar, Punjab has begun impounding the passports of NRI runaway bridegrooms.
The Jalandhar Passport Office’s Women’s Grievance Section (WGS) had received over 500 calls from UK, USA, Canada, Europe, China, Australia etc. Also, 200 people had visited the passport office to complain. Jalandhar had the maximum cases against NRI grooms, followed by Hoshiarpur.
India's abandoned brides are victims of cultural fraud which is perpetuated by greed and fuelled by a manic desire to go overseas.
Lured by the promise of large dowries, prospective grooms frequently breeze in every year from the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe marry, then rush back home with the spoils, leaving behind what have become known as "abandoned brides".
Today, across India, an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 young women live to regret marriages that have left them alone, miserable and consumed with shame.
According to Balwant Singh Ramoowalia formerly of the the Lok Bhalai party, a small political organisation in Punjab, over 22,000 abandoned brides have registered criminal cases against their NRI (Non-Resident Indian) grooms in Punjab alone.
The South Asian Post and its sister papers were among the first newspapers in Canada to highlight and investigate this social menace five years ago.
With an estimated 30,000 brides being abandoned every year, usually by husbands living overseas, India's Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs also recommends that families hire private detectives to vet suitors and avoid being conned into giving away dowries, which are officially outlawed but are still common among the wealthy.
The ministry estimates that hundreds of thousands of brides are lied to or misled each year.
While arranged marriages between Indo-Canadians and Indian nationals have a time-honoured and successful history, police in the state of Punjab, from which 75 per cent of B.C.'s Indo-Canadian population originates, say half of these marriages today are frauds.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada is also planning to tighten policies to prevent people from gaining permanent residency through marriage fraud.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada acknowledges roughly 1,000 such cases are reported annually. In 2009, nearly 45,000 people immigrated to Canada as spouses.
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