Abused and abandoned, the struggle of Indian women after divorce with non-residents

Driven by community of origin to return home to marry, Indians living abroad bring their wives back with them, but on different visas that deprive them of the same rights as their husbands. Abandoned after marriage, they often lose access to their children and their basic rights. In India, there is still no law obliging men to appear before a judge to answer for their abuse.

New Delhi (AsiaNews) - There is an increasingly common form of abuse of women in South and South East Asia: abandonment after marriage. It is a phenomenon that has been known for some time, whereby a man of Indian origin but living abroad, after taking possession of his wife's dowry, divorces her, abandoning her in her country of origin and depriving her of her visa and the possibility of seeing her children. Tens of thousands of Indian women have suffered this kind of domestic violence in recent years. 

India is the country with one of the largest diasporas in the world, with nearly 32 million Indians living abroad who at some point, for cultural reasons related to their community of origin, return home in search of a wife. Some women are attracted by the idea of marrying a 'non-resident Indian' (NRI) who could offer them better opportunities for life abroad, but often what should be a fairytale ending turns into a nightmare.

Abandonments often go hand in hand with other forms of domestic violence: Priya, a computer engineer who had followed her husband to California, was thrown out of the house with a broken arm after an argument. She had failed to report the abuse to the police because her husband threatened to commit suicide if she told anyone about it. Back in Pune, India, Priya became yet another victim of transnational abandonment: her husband had secretly prepared divorce papers and returned to the US alone. After a legal battle with her in-laws in India, Priya attempted reconciliation with her husband in California, but he wanted nothing more to do with her. 

Despite the great strides made in terms of gender equality, India's patriarchal culture encourages domestic abuse: a woman must submit to her husband's (and often her family of origin's) wishes, but once abandoned she is considered by Indian society to be 'damaged goods'. The payment of a dowry, made illegal in 1961, actually still takes place, but in more sophisticated ways, such as through the purchase of a house in which the newlyweds will then live. According to a survey conducted within a community of Indians living in America, more than half claimed to have been victims or aware of domestic abuse. Forty per cent of respondents said they stay in abusive relationships to keep up appearances or for fear of family retaliation or fear of losing money or access to their children.

Meanwhile, Priya's visa, linked to her marital situation, is said to have expired after two months: in the United States, foreign workers, and especially Indians employed in the big Silicon Valley tech companies, reside in the country on H1B visas. Their health insurance, bank accounts, driver's licence and all the rest of the legal documents are tied to that visa and not to their spouse's, which prevents them from looking for a job, making Indian wives in Silicon Valley financially dependent on their husbands, even though they are often engineers or computer scientists themselves. With their visa, they risk deportation after the divorce.

The Indian government claims to have received 6 thousand reports of abandonment cases between 2015 and 2019. Almost 3 thousand cases were recorded between 2017 and 2019 alone, but a 2013 study had estimated that there were at least 30 thousand abandoned women in India. The phenomenon has reached such proportions that it has become necessary to publish an information pamphlet on the legal rights that wives enjoy when marrying overseas men, and some Indian states have set up special police departments that settle cases related to divorces with NRIs.

A 2020 bill provides for marriages to non-resident Indians to be registered in India as well, because it is precisely the lack of proof certifying the overseas union at home that prevents legal action from being taken. However, due to the pandemic, the legislation is still under discussion in Parliament. In 2019, the Indian government cancelled the passports of 33 non-resident Indians who had deserted their wives, but this is not enough: some women have lobbied for former husbands to be able to leave their wives.

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