"Kiran's* husband was more than 10,000km away from the home she shared with her in-laws in a village in northern India. But despite the vast distance, he watched her constantly through cameras which beamed into a screen in his Brisbane home. He would say: I can always see what you do', she recalls through an interpreter. While her husband was visiting his family home in India in 2017, the cameras were installed in the house"
"Some abandonments are for financial gain, with husbands absconding with a dowry which remains widespread despite becoming illegal in India in 1961. In other cases, husbands use their wives to provide domestic help for their in-laws in India which some advocates liken to modern slavery. Other men may want to take their wife overseas but unforeseen visa issues prevent this."
"Kiran is one of thousands of Indian women to have been sold a dream that they would migrate overseas once they were married and start a new life only for it to turn to a nightmare, says Yasmin Khan, the head of Queensland-based service the Bangle Foundation, which supports south Asian women facing domestic abuse. Women's rights advocates say the phenomenon is creating abandoned brides women deserted after their wedding day by Indian-born husbands living abroad in countries including the UK, Australia and Canada."
A pattern of abandonment affects Indian women who were promised migration after marriage but remain in India. Some husbands abandon wives after obtaining dowry payments, while others keep wives to provide domestic labour for in-laws. Surveillance through cameras and long-distance control are used to monitor and intimidate wives. Visa problems and immigration barriers also leave some women stranded and unable to join spouses abroad. Legal and human-rights recourse is often complex, and support organisations report thousands of cases of deserted brides across countries such as the UK, Australia and Canada.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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