By Mata Press

At least one woman married to an NRI or Non-resident Indian calls home every eight hours seeking help to return after being deserted by her husband.

Complaints received by India’s Ministry of External Affairs show that in the 1,064 days between Jan 2015 and Nov 2017, the ministry received 3,328 such complaints.

The numbers provide a glimpse into the scourge of India's abandoned brides who are victims of cultural fraud which is perpetuated by greed and fueled 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.

Most of the women are originally from Punjab and Andhra-Telangana followed by Gujarat, say lawyers, activists and people working in Indian missions abroad. The National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development, in its study on deserted women some years ago, also confirms this fact, local media reported.

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 has recommended 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 many of these marriages today are frauds.

Lawyer Daljit Kaur, a women’s rights activist, from Chandigarh has been in the forefront of fighting this penance since the early 2000.

“We need a cohesive plans that is recognized internationally to stop this scourge,” said Kaur.

She is currently working to connect lawyers in various countries to her NGO specifically being set up to held abandoned brides and women NRI’s in disputes overseas.

This is to be a portal which will have information on lawyers and NGOs working in this field. It will also contain information on rules and regulation related to these kind of issues. It will act as a single-point redressal system for women to voice their grievances and guide them to seek help from civil society groups.

“I am also completing a book on what resourses are available for Indian women in distress overseas and what they should do to get help,” said Kaur.  

Other suggestions brought forward to the government include a special marriage visa application, registration of marrying an Indian on the national id card and a security clearance check which would include marital status.

Last month, the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) said it is planning to undertake research project to evaluate problems faced by women married to NRI men.

There have been several cases where Non-Resident Indian men have left their wives in India and no research studying the condition of the abandoned wives has been conducted so far, ICSSR chairman BB Kumar said, PTI reported.

“The culture by NRI men to come to their homeland and marry girls here is quite old but not all the times these marriages are successful. There have been so many cases when the grooms left the brides here itself or forged certain details about themselves,” Kumar added.

The council is yet to approve and sanction the research project and is studying the subject. After the feasibility study is done and material for the research is collected, the project will be authorized and the work will commence.

Kumar noted that no research has been conducted on how many such marriages take place in the country and where do these women stand after a few years of marriage, the report added. “What happens to those girls who are cheated on pretext of being NRI brides? Do we need stricter norms? All these need to be studied,” he said.

Maneka Gandhi, the Minister for Women and Child Development said last year that the Indian government is planning to collect data on all registered marriages to make NRI grooms more accountable and curb incidents of desertion of wives in a foreign country.

A high-level committee set up to research and formulate guidelines for safeguarding the rights of NRI wives had recommended last year that NRIs who harass and desert their wives could face severe punishment, including cancellation of passport.