THE INDIAN government is to adopt a raft of measures aimed at assisting Indian women “deserted by their overseas Indian husbands”.
Included in the new measures are the compulsory registration of marriages, fast-tracking of cases through family courts and information campaigns for “prospective brides”.
The provisions are believed to be aimed at protecting Indian women joining spouses overseas through arranged marriages, popular in the Hindu tradition, and at women in India who find themselves abandoned by husbands who go overseas and do not come back.
The decisions were arrived at following an inter-ministerial meeting between India’s minister of overseas Indian affairs Vayalar Ravi, its minister of state for women and child development Renuka Chowdhury and representatives from several other ministries and organisations. The meeting adopted the recommendations of the sub-committee appointed in May 2007 to study problems related to marriages of Indian women with overseas Indians.
The inter-ministerial meeting presided by minister Ravi decided that all marriages solemnised in India should be compulsorily registered and the documentations used to register marriages should also have columns for the social security number, passport particulars, ID card/labour card etc to build a proper identification and tracking system.
It was also decided that national and state authorities should pass on information to emigration authorities regarding court orders against accused emigrant Indians, in order to prevent such people from leaving India against court orders.
Meanwhile, it was stated that provisions on the enforcement of maintenance orders be made part of mutual legal assistance treaties that India has signed with other countries, especially with the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand where the “problem of desertion of Indian women by overseas Indians is acute”.
A statement from the Indian government said that “[an]Indian bride’s case should not go unrepresented” in the case of litigation in a foreign court, and that the ministry of overseas Indian affairs’ scheme to assist Indian women in defending their cases abroad with US$1,000 should be “enhanced substantially”.
According to the Indian government, the possibility of creating a flexi-fund “may also be explored by [the] pooling of money by Indian associations…. a matching grant from the government could be considered.”
A vigorous information campaign was cited as necessary to “educate prospective brides and their families to take possible precautions before entering into marriage alliance with overseas Indians”. It outlined that an information brochure “may be prepared by experts having knowledge of private international law on the working of the relevant Hague Conventions.”
The National Commission for Women will, henceforth, be the coordinating agency at the national level to receive and process all complaints related to Indian women deserted by overseas Indians.
It was suggested that a team of officials visit the countries where the problem of deserted Indian women is acute, in order to “study local regulations, hold discussions on the issue with the concerned local authorities and determine the clauses which could be incorporated in the proposed agreements to assist the affected Indian women.
