Photo by Ekta Parishad
In India, many people come for tourist reasons.
Per BBC, “Their husbands come from all over the world, but mainly countries with a large South Asian diaspora, like the UK, the US and Canada.”
The motivation for these husbands is not love but to get rich through their dowry. Dowry is when the family of the wife pays their husband to marry their girl. Many husbands take the money, marry the woman and then disappear after the honeymoon, leaving the girl and family destitute.
Stowe Family Law reports, “Women from Asia can be exploited and abandoned in the UK by husbands who merely use an arranged marriage agreement to secure a dowry payment. Once they have it, they simply leave their ‘outcast wives’ stranded here with very few legal options.”
Another reason why foreigners leave their Indian wives is that they keep on demanding more dowry and when the money dries out, the husband leaves his wife.
BBC News states woman who said, “‘Soon after we got married…he started complaining about the dowry. He said my family isn’t happy with you.’”
Sometimes, women will go to foreign countries such as the UK with their husbands. The husbands will then start mistreating them.
Per Stowe Family Law, “Speaking to the BBC, the SBS director Pragna Patel said the group was ‘only beginning to scratch the surface of the problem’. Asian women brought to the UK can be victims of ‘physical, sexual, financial, emotional abuse’ before they are eventually discarded by their husbands. Patel explained that for some of these women, the dowry demands continue even after they marry and ‘ultimately when they cannot meet the demands they are abandoned’.”
Another tragedy behind the foreign husbands marrying Indian women, is that after they have been left, often the wife will file a lawsuit, which can drag on. Often, because of the high dowry the wife will have no way to fund the lawsuit for a long time.
BBC explains, “‘There are a number of difficulties… and moreover these girls don’t have the money to pay for the legal system.’”
One girl was left alone, because her mom danced to make a living so there could be food on the table. Raizel got used to being alone. Now she is in a Bridge of Hope Center, getting attention and an education.
Gospel for Asia (GFA) states that her mother said, “‘I am thankful to the Bridge of Hope center for taking my daughter, where she is morally and physically developed, and now she is so good in studies,’ Saima said. ‘Thank you for providing such hope to my child, which will decide her future.’”
Pray for the end of foreigners marrying women just for their dowry. Pray for many of these women to know Christ’s hope. Pray for their children to be able to get an education.
BBC: Meeting in secret: The outcast wives of India
Stowe Family Law: Law must do more to help ‘outcast wives’
Gospel for Asia: Dancing Mom, Alone Daughter
