ADiagnosticStudyofWivesDesertedNRIs

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1、A Diagnostic Study of Wives Deserted by NRIsM.K. JabbiSenior FellowCouncil for Social Development53 Lodi Estate, New Delhi 110003CONTENTSAcknowledgementiChapter I: Introduction11.1 Problem11.2 Review of Literature21.3 Need for the Study6Chapter II: Background72.1 Backdrop72.2 Economic Development82.

2、3 Social Development82.4 Present Situation92.5 Out Migration11Chapter III: Methodology143.1 Objectives143.2 Methodology143.3 Sample153.4 Method153.5 Tools153.6 Data Collection and Field work163.7 Field Problems163.8 Data Analysis18Chapter IV: Findings and Analysis194.1 General Observations194.2 Find

3、ings of the Study204.2.1 Socio-economic Profile234.3 Reasons for Such Marriages254.4 Reasons for Break up of Such Marriages27Chapter V: Coping, Rehabilitation and Safeguards305.1 Coping with the Problem305.2 Rehabilitation of the Deserted Wives325.3 Securing Justice and Providing Safeguards335.4 Rec

4、ommendations for Rehabilitation and Securing Justice35 for Deserted Women5.4.1 Recommendations for Rehabilitation365.4.2 Implementing Safeguards375.4.3 Legal Recommendations385.4.4 Safeguards through Social awareness40APPENDICESAppendix I: Districtwise Number of Cases, 1995-200443Appendix II: Resear

5、ch Team44Appendix III: Case Studies45ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI am very grateful to Ms. Reva, Nayyar, Secretary, Department of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Human Resource Development, GOI, for sponsoring A Diagnostic Study of Wives Deserted by NRIs. It provided me an opportunity to study this pro

6、blem from close quarters and to go to its roots. I thank Shri R. N. Kalsia, Secretary, Social Security, Department of Women and child Development, Govt. of Punjab for his cooperation in the study. I also thank Shri D. S. Bains, who was earlier in charge of the NRI Department, and Shri N. S. Kalsi, C

7、ommissioner NRIs and Secretary, Information Technology, Govt. of Punjab. Thanks are due to the Director General, Police Department, Govt. of Punjab for organising a preliminary workshop in Chandigarh and in Hoshiarpur and for providing the data regarding the number of cases registered and FIRs filed

8、. I thank Shri D. K. Tiwari, District Commissioner of Hoshiarpur and Shri A. K. Gupta, District Commissioner, Jalandhar for their cooperation and logistic support to the team. Shri Ram Prakash, DSP, Hoshiarpur and Shri P. K. Rai, Sp/ City II, Jalandhar were very helpful in providing us the FIRs. No

9、amount of thanks to S. Amarjit Singh Hamrol, Secretary, Red Cross Society, Hoshiarpur district, can suffice for the excellent arrangements not only for our stay and travel but also in organising our meetings with the officials. His office staff was always ready to help us in any way we wanted.I am g

10、rateful to S. Amrik Singh Saini, Ms. Daljit Kaur and Ms. Kirti Singh, all lawyers who gave us their valuable suggestions. I thank Prof. Muchkund Dubey, President of the Council for Social Development, for his valuable suggestions on the report. I am grateful to Dr. N. J. Kurian, Director, CSD, for t

11、he logistic support provided by the Council. I acknowledge the help of Shri R. S. Somi for providing logistic support and making all necessary arrangements for making available the finances in time.I owe the execution of the project to my research team, especially Ms. Asha Lepcha, all of whom worked

12、 really hard without complaining of any inconvenience that they must have felt and were always with a smile on their face. Credit is also due to our driver, Shri Aman, who was very punctual and willing to take us to all the places we had to visit and knew all the routes.And last, but not the least,

13、I am indebted to all the girls who were so brave in the face of such grave problems and their parents who willingly spoke to us to provide us with all the information that we asked for. Without their cooperation, the study could not have been done. The parents of the boys as well as the intermediari

14、es who had negotiated the marriages, whom we met were also helpful.November 2005M. K. JabbiSenior FellowCHAPTER IINTRODUCTIONModern transport and communication system has reduced the entire world into a global village. Distances are no longer daunting. They do not act as barriers to social interacti

15、ons even among the distantly located societies. The communication system has vastly improved and people are just a phone call away from each other. This has opened the floodgates of large-scale migration from India to places of opportunities to earn livelihood and improve the economic conditions. Ho

16、wever, the migrants do carry their strong family and social traditions along with them. Immediate social environments of the host/adopted societies also affect them, but gradually. In a situation like this, the migrants return to their roots and the land of their forefathers for meeting most of thei

17、r social needs, particularly for marriages. Most males settled abroad prefer to marry girls from back home. Others succumb, under family pressure, to enter into arranged marriages with girls from India. Most of the time the boy and girl, as in arranged Indian marriages, have never met before marriag

18、e. This leads to very unsavoury and disastrous consequences giving way to many a social problem.1.1 The ProblemMany Indian women who enter into arranged marriages with non-resident Indians are led up to a garden path by the husbands family who project rosy and misleading pictures about their income

19、and status. The girls family neither has the resources nor is in a position to verify their exaggerated claims. The great hurry in which such marriages are formalised leaves hardly any time to verify the veracity of the claims. Sometimes, the boys may be already married which may or may not be in th

20、e knowledge of the boys family. Greed of dowry may be another reason on the part of the boys to hasten the marriage. The motivation of the girls family to find a non-resident groom is partly the perceived high and glamorous status of the groom, though pretentious, and partly their urge for an openin

21、g into the promised land to serve as a gateway for the other members of their family. Lure to visit foreign lands may be yet another temptation for the girls family and their poverty may be a compelling factor in such marriages which propels them to take such a risky course.Once married the situatio

22、n changes. The woman is mostly not taken abroad on some pretext or the other. She is asked to wait till the laws/ regulations of the foreign land enable her to secure a visa for that land. If she is unlucky, she might become a mother meanwhile and end up as an unpaid maid in her in-laws family toili

23、ng from morning to night. She is unable to get any succour from her parental home mostly on account of poverty and sometimes on account of the prevalent belief that after marriage the girl belongs to the in-laws. If at all she is taken abroad, she is ill-treated, made a slave to the extended family

24、of the husband and sometimes even deserted. She is ill equipped to fight such an adversity because of poor skills/education. She is unable to communicate her grievances to anybody because of her near zero familiarity with the local language. Second marriages by the husbands either abroad or sometime

25、s even back home in India either before or after such a marriage are not uncommon. Some NRIs have even made this a flourishing business. 1.2 Review of LiteratureA review of the literature, particularly the newspapers and internet, indicate that the phenomenon is not unique to Punjab. Gujarat (Untitl

26、ed document, 2004) too seems to be afflicted by the malaise, though not a single case has been filed against any erring husband. The other States affected are Kerala, Haryana, Delhi, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh (Singh, 2003). Some cases have been reported from Hyderabad where Arabs are involved.

27、They marry young girls for a brief period, at times for a single night. They prefer virgin girls and at times marry more than one girl in a single sitting. A girl is also recycled in this way to many Arabs (Wajihuddin, 2005). It is usually the girls of very poor families who are the victims and at t

28、imes the parents are in league with the cleric who conducts the wedding. Sometimes the girl also does not protest as she knows that she will never be able to marry anyone else in the absence of dowry. The exploitation in such cases is in no way less though it is felt that it has the superficial vene

29、er of respectability as Muslims are legally allowed to have four wives. But with divorce being literally at the tip of the fingers, as easy and flippant as sending an sms, the situation of the girls involved is extremely deplorable. The latest addition to the list is West Bengal where at least 100 w

30、omen have filed cases demanding restoration of their marriage annulled by divorce decrees abroad. A match-making agency has filed a PIL asking courts to stop non-resident grooms in foreign courts from divorcing their Indian wives in foreign countries. It has demanded that the high court intervene to

31、 get the relevant laws changed. At present a wedding registered under the Indian marriage law can be annulled by a foreign court (Chhaya 2005).Bal (2001/ 2004?) estimates that 70 lakh people have gone abroad from the Doaba region while the present population of this region was 41.25 lakhs according

32、to the 2001 census. He talks of the phenomenon of holiday wives which is rampant in the area (Bal, 2001; Pushkarna, 2001; The Asian Pacific Post, 2004; Chandrani, 2002). Pravin Bhandari, who runs a marriage bureau in Phillaur mentions that most people knew that they were entering a risky situation (

33、Bal, 2001). The men come for a visit, take the girls out at times without any promise of emotional support or care but the girls parents keep hoping that things will work out. There were such cases in every village but there was no collective protest or action taken. Every lawyer in the Doaba belt h

34、ad a few cases of NRI matrimonial dispute despite the fact that little could be done in such cases. Even when marriages take place, very often the wife is deserted either in India or even in the foreign country (Asian Post, 2004b; Prakash, 2002; Bath, 2003; Chaba, 2003). In fact because the phenomen

35、on has assumed such enormous proportions NRIs have come to mean Non Responsible Indians and Non Reliable Indians (Singh, 2002) rather than Non Resident Indians.Kang (2002) explodes the myths about the land of milk and honey and highlights how the Punjabis choose to marry their daughters to NRIs thro

36、ugh whom the whole family can move overseas without verifying the boys educational background, resident status, work status, income, etc. only to find that the girl is ill-treated, abused and even deserted at times. She mentions that migration to foreign countries is seen as a last resort to escape

37、poverty and as a privilege as it increases the socio-economic status of the family, though the realities of immigration may be poverty, mental illness, bigamy, racism and above all wife abuse. Such is the craze for going abroad that there are families which can stoop to the shocking level of arrangi

38、ng a marriage between a brother and a sister or between cousins, forbidden by law. (The Tribune, 2002).The National Commission for Women (NCW) identified desertions of women by NRIs as one of the most serious gender issues in Punjab and recommended that a special cell for problems related to NRI mar

39、riages be established in the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs. They mentioned that some Indian embassies had welfare officers to assist Indian women caught up in bad marriages overseas and there were 22 organisations in the United States working among the Sout

40、h Asian community to address these issues (Melwani, 2005). The NCW has conducted a series of workshops and has presented a report to the Ministry of Overseas Indians and also proposed a draft Convention on Jurisdiction, Recognition and Enforcement of Judgements in Matrimonial Matters.Kaur (2003) tal

41、ks of the changing attitudes and cultural differences within and outside India that have affected the social fabric of Punjab and the social life of Punjabis. The third generation Indian migrants were more western than Indian and had to cope with the western culture outside and three cultures at hom

42、e: Indian, Indian-Western and Western-Indian. Marriage was no longer considered a sacrament and in the absence of laws related to international marriages many problems cropped up in marriages with NRIs.Pushkarna (2003) points out that earlier women were informally disowned but now they were getting

43、divorce decrees from foreign courts and the phenomenon was spread over the whole of Punjab, particularly the Doaba region. The most depressing revelation was that young women were still walking into the NRI marriage trap despite countless stories of deserted women staring them in the face. Greed for

44、 dowry on the boys side and the desire on the girls side to make it big in the foreign lands were the main reasons.Sharma (2002) talks of the menace of NRI grooms deserting their wives and that there was no legislation that could enforce their extradition. Satyapal Dang, a social activist expresses

45、the desperate need of amendments to the present laws to tackle this menace and proposes that meanwhile the Government should exercise the right to cancel the passports of such NRI grooms. Ramoowalia (2003) of the Lok Bhalai Party estimates that there were at least 15000 cases of abandoned wives in P

46、unjab and felt that the phenomenon had attained the spectre of organised crime. He calls for formal legislation to check the menace and suggests: (i) if her husband does not sponsor her migration within 90 days of the marriage the girl should be allowed to file an FIR, which the police should readil

47、y do; (ii) the Ministry of External Affairs should seize the passport of the husband; (iii) the girl should have all rights and control over half the assets and property of the boy in India and should not be sold without her consent and (iv) immediatey after the marriage the girls photograph and det

48、ails should be appended to the boys passport. 1.3 Need for the StudyThe number of women deserted by NRI husbands is very large and is on the rise. No study has been done on the extent of this problem or its reasons. The situation, however, is very grim particularly in rural Punjab though at times ev

49、en the urban and educated populace become victim to this malady. Even daughters of well-placed bureaucrats have been found to be the victims of this tragedy. Normally, such occurrences were considered to be a social shame and no attempts were made to seek redressals except by way of mediation by fam

50、ily and friends. However, such things having become a common place occurrence, they are beginning to come out of the closet. The magnitude of the problem can be gauged by the fact that around 10,000 women were languishing in Punjab after being deserted by their NRI husbands (Kaur 2003). According to

51、 a newspaper report, 42 such cases have been lodged in Jagraon (Punjab) alone; the actual number of cases may be many more.There is, therefore, an urgent need to study the social compulsions/ factors that lead parents to marry off their daughters to NRIs who ruin their lives completely. It is also t

52、o be examined whether any safeguards can be built at the time of marriage to protect the girls from being abused. CHAPTER IIBACKGROUND2.1 The BackdropA brief look at the State of Punjab will go a long way towards understanding the present problem. Punjab is the countrys largest grain producer. With

53、just 2.37% of Indias population and 1.59% of its area, Punjab contributes 11.63% of the total foodgrains produced in the country (Census 2001 and Economic Survey of India, 2004-05). From being an importer of foodgrain in the early years after Independence, India now produces surplus food as a result

54、 of the Green Revolution. Punjab has played an important role in defending India against foreign aggressions for centuries. Not only has it pushed back external aggressors but the Punjabis have been in the forefront of the struggle for independence. “In terms of sacrifice of life, property, jobs and

55、 personal freedom, Punjab suffered more than any other province of British India. Relatively, among the Punjabis, the Sikhs suffered more, both as revolutionaries and peaceful agitators” (HDRP p.14). Even after independence, Punjab has played a major role in defending the country against military ag

56、gression.In the second half of the last century, Punjabs geographical boundaries have been reduced twice: suddenly and violently at the time of the partition of India in 1947 with a colossal loss of human lives and property and as a result of the administrative division of Punjab in 1966 when the St

57、ate of Haryana was carved out of Punjab and the hill areas were merged with Himachal Pradesh. Punjab now has an area of 50,362 sq. kms. which is about half its area before 1966 and is just one-seventh of its area before partition. The State has withstood the impact of two intense periods of internal

58、 crisis: the Left movement inspired by the Naxalites in the 1960s and 1970s and the militant movement in the 1980s and early 1990s. In spite of the above, the Human Development Indicators in Punjab are among the best in the nation.2.2 Economic DevelopmentThe economic development of Punjab is mainly

59、due to agriculture. The inputs of the Government - both at the State level as well as the Centre and the hard work and enterprise of the Punjabi farmers have borne fruit. Thousands of small manufacturing units have led to fairly high income levels of the people. Investments in infrastructure, such a

60、s, roads, rural electrification, safe drinking water, schools and health centres have provided the people of the State with basic amenities of life still unavailable in large parts of India. The rate of growth in GDP was very high from mid 1960s to 1980. Punjab ranked 4th in 1960-61 in terms of per

61、capita income but took 1st position in 1964-65 and maintained this status till 1992-93. Now it has come down to the fourth position, the highest per capita income being that of Delhi, Maharashtra and Pondicherry. The income poverty level in Punjab was just 6%.But amidst this great prosperity there a

62、re pockets of deprivation. The Doaba region situated between the Beas and Sutlej rivers, comprising the districts of Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Nawashahr is the most developed while the southern and south-western districts are the poorly developed ones.2.3 Social DevelopmentThe Scheduled

63、Caste (SC) population is one of the most deprived sections of society. Punjab has the highest proportion of SCs 29% (Census, 2001). The SC literacy rate is 56.2 as compared to 69.7% in the total population. The general female literacy is 63.4% while the SC female literacy is only 48.3%. In some dist

64、ricts it is almost as low as that in Bihar. The land owned by the SC is only one-tenth of their share of the total population (HDRP, p.1).There is great discrimination against women in Punjab. Statistics on gender ratio (874 in 2001) and even more so on juvenile sex ratio (793) are a matter of alarming concern. Though Punjab was second in rank on Human Development Indicators (HDI) after Kerala, it ranked 12th on Gender Development In