Three-member committee with members from WCD, home and MEA has been formed .
In 2000, when Muktsar-based Sabiha’s* aunt found her a match, a man based in the US, she and her family were elated. The whole affair was over in a span of two months; the groom’s family demanded a dowry of Rs 4.5 lakh, and soon after the wedding, he left. He would visit Sabiha every year.
Her demands that he take her with him were always put off. But, when she gave birth to a daughter in 2003, she was abandoned. By then, her family had shelled out another Rs 1.5 lakh to help him over the years. She later found out that he was married, had a son, and was living in Seoul and not in the US.
But if the Ministry of Women and Child Development has its way, help is at hand for scores of women like Sabiha. The WCD ministry is now working, with the External Affairs and Home ministries, on guidelines to help women stranded in marriages with NRIs.
“We are working with both the ministries, and the guidelines will be out in a few days. The ministry has received several such cases, and we were working on it alone. Now we’ve formed a three-member committee which will have an official from each ministry,” said WCD minister Maneka Gandhi, soon after a meeting with MEA minister Sushma Swaraj. “Working with the other ministries will hopefully prove to be more effective.”
In an unstarred question in July 2015, Minister of State for External Affairs General VK Singh said that between 2012 to 2015, 203 cases of fraudulent cases had been taken up by the ministry in 12 Indian missions abroad. However, the numbers look larger than this. In 2009, then NCW chief Girija Vyas said that two out of 10 NRI marriages end in desertion in the honeymoon alone. Former External Affairs Minister Valayar Ravi, too, in 2008 said that Punjab alone has registered over 20,000 such cases.
A ministry official said that the there are cases of husbands who keep the passports of wives, of leaving wives in India, or abandoning them abroad. “We are looking at a proactive role of the Indian missions abroad, in a way in which a man who is harassing a woman will have his passport cancelled and the host country told by the Indian mission,” said the official.
*Name changed
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "Maneka Gandhi")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}