Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

What Women want

Many parents are eager to get their daughter married off to someone abroad and therefore do not give much importance to her safety. The girls are hesitant to seek help in case of abuse because they are taught from childhood that the onus of the family honour is on them and the girls feel guilty to break the marriage since their parents have spent so much on it. They also find it difficult because they are from a different socio-cultural background. Parents should make sure that their daughters are financially and socially secure in the new country. Most girls there are dependent on their husband for money. Parents should be vigilant to signs of abuse such as mild depression, and not ask the girls to “adjust” when they reveal abuse. As a society we have laws that prevent violence against women, but we need to internalise them otherwise the implementation will never take place.

We need to deglamourise the idea of going abroad through marriage. Many women get carried away by it and don’t check if the man is already married. It is difficult to do a check on a man who is settled abroad. I have come across cases where men are afraid to speak of their existing relationships to their parents, marry the girls here and don’t consummate the marriage. In U.K., the spouse automatically gets work permits and this works to the woman’s advantage. In countries such as the U.S., this is not so and the women lack economic independence, mobility and a social network, and the public service systems like the transport system is appalling. There are support groups for South Asian women in New York and London, but I am not sure how good their outreach programs to other cities are. As part of the visa procedure, the women should be made aware of the various support groups available to them. The girls are not welcomed home in case the marriage dissolves. Their parents spend a lot on the marriage, especially if the boy is working abroad. So they hesitate on ending the relationship. Women too are not keen on ending the relationship because of the stigma attached to divorce. The solution to this problem is not only legal.

If women are harassed in the U.S., they can seek support from the system the country has in place. Right across the U.S. there are lots of groups who work with South Asian women like the Manavi in New Jersey or Narika in California. But most women don’t use this support system because most are dependent on their husbands or their husbands threaten them. Many women rush back to India, but it is difficult to fight the case from here. The support groups cannot help them since they need the victim’s presence to fight the case in the U.S., and if the victim tries to file a case in the U.S. by herself, it is extremely expensive. If the woman decides to file a case in India, at the threshold of the case itself she will have to face long delays. This is because while in the U.S. the husband only has to post the summons, and submit an affidavit in court saying that he has posted it to the right address and he can start the legal proceeding. In India, the wife will have to get an acknowledgement signed by the husband for the registered post. If we post it to his office, the mail department receives the post and the department head acknowledges receipt which is not acceptable in our courts. If we send it to the residential address, then postal department will drop him a note in his mailbox that he has a registered post. If he does not collect it from the department, they return it to India with the endorsement “unclaimed.” In India, if you don’t take registered post it is considered “refused.” So while “unclaimed” is equivalent to “refused”, it is not recognised in our courts as that. A wife will have to spend eight months to one year only in sending summons, meanwhile the husband would have started proceedings for judicial separation and child custody. In the U.S., they issue ex-parte decree, which means the husband will get a verdict even without the wife present. Women should not rush back to India. They should stay on in the country and use the support system available there. Under the concept of joint matrimonial assets there, the wife gets a better financial deal also.

A woman suffered abuse from her husband for years in the U.S., and did not tell her family. This, even though she was well-educated and came down to India occasionally. When her second child was born, she talked about the abuse to her parents and they refused to let her go back. The husband had already started judicial proceedings for judicial separation and custody rights, without informing her. He sent the judicial summons through his friend, packed with a gift for his new-born baby. He won the custody rights for even the two-month old baby. The wife refuses to go back to U.S. and lose her children.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail