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India steps in to
help brides
Calgary, March 11, 2006
Mike Roberts
The Calgary Herald
India has announced plans to set up an international
network to crack down on fake marriages, and has vowed
to aid harassed and abandoned brides at home and abroad.
Sending its strongest message to date on the issue
of marital fraud involving non-resident Indians, India
proposes to create "special cells" in Canada
and other "locations that have a significant
Indian population," said Vayalar Ravi, minister
for overseas Indian affairs.
Wherever required, Ravi said, "the effort would
be to get the guilty extradited to India."
This is the third initiative from India in response
to Abandoned Brides, a Calgary Herald/Vancouver Province
series on the tragic trend of brides in India being
abandoned by Canadian men. The series ran over five
days in October, and sparked an international outcry.
The units will help parents verify eligibility of
prospective grooms, and ensure abandoned brides receive
legal and medical aid in India or abroad.
"I would advise state governments to establish
independent gender cells to deal with issues related
to marriages to overseas Indians and to extend the
required assistance. These cells can then act in a
co-ordinated manner with the overseas centres,"
Ravi said.
Vancouver's Indian consul general, Ashok Kumar, welcomed
the initiative.
"We are seeking details from Delhi," he
said.
India's proposal preceded the establishment last
week of the Canadian Marriage Fraud Victims Force
Society, a B.C. Lower Mainland immigrant services
and lobby group.
At the Grand Taj banquet hall in Surrey, B.C., earlier
this month, more than 300 concerned citizens voiced
their anger over the growing issue of marital fraud
in the Indo-Canadian community.
"There's not only boys who leave girls behind,
there are girls who leave boys behind and people who
come here and disappear from the airport, or vanish
after one week, three weeks," organizer Palwinder
Gill said.
Gill, whose Indian
wife came to Canada last June and subsequently fled,
has formed a non-profit society to assist other victims
of marital fraud. The Canadian Marriage Fraud Victims
Force Society will petition Ottawa for a change to
Canada's immigration law placing a "three-year
condition" on spousal sponsorship.
"They would get landed status from the very
beginning, but if they are going out of that relationship
within three years, their landed status would be cancelled,"
said Gill. "There would be exceptions, if there
is abuse or crime, but there must be solid evidence."
Last October, Sikh holy leaders in Amritsar urged
Sikhs to stop offering dowries for their daughters
in a bid to prevent dishonest non-resident Indians
from seeking to defraud their Indian brides.
In January, New Delhi's Union Ministry for NRI Affairs
launched an educational campaign listing precautions
women should take when considering marriage proposals
from abroad, as well as outlining their rights under
Indian law.