MEA data on NRI women in distress is an eye-opener. We must change mindsets
Just when we thought that women empowerment was the axis of our policies, budgetary to electoral, it is frightening to note that the regular NRI woman is still stuck in the 80s pit of abuse and desertion. If the Ministry of External Affairs data is to be believed, then at least one woman married to an NRI calls home every eight hours seeking help to return after being deserted by her husband or being subjected to ill-treatment and physical torture. Women are being disempowered on foreign shores, cut off from the protection and redressal systems at home and deliberately isolated from those available in host countries and at missions. There are shocking tales of incarceration and captivity, especially among unsuspecting young brides of arranged marriages, who are consigned to housekeeping duties, lodged in shabby basements and stripped off vital papers.
If we collate reports from our missions, most women are originally from Punjab and Seemandhara-Telangana followed by Gujarat. Particularly in these States, marrying a daughter off to an NRI is a cross-sectional benchmark of social ascension and for the groom’s family reason enough to extort dowry as a passport to a privileged life. Grooms still fall in line with their parents’ choices knowing full well that they can command a nascent relationship on their terms in a different terrain, geographically, socially and economically. The most obvious manifestation of assumed power is physical violence and domestic imprisonment that prevents the women from even registering their complaints at host countries and missions, which have a dedicated rescue mechanism and link victims to community support groups. In fact, the Modi Government’s emphasis on giving out $2000-3000 financial help for abandoned women and a proposed single-window redressal portal is one of the reasons that the dispossessed have found reassurance and are speaking up.
It’s a further misconception that the problem is confined to a certain section of married women; educated women are as much victims. Being an NRI wife doesn’t mean easy migration what with visa processes to the US taking up to three years, putting a strain on the relationship itself. Even if the visa is got, the work visa remains elusive. Often career women have to make do with lesser jobs. Sometimes they acquire a new skill to fit in, which can be frustrating for someone whose core competence lies elsewhere. Indians fuel the global talent pool, lobbyists are changing the way the world looks at us and Indian-origin politicians are claiming legitimate positions in Governments. Yet the accelerated process of cross-cultural assimilation has decelerated the status of migrant wives and continues to do so.