<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jan/10/india-brides-abandoned-visa-limbo-australia-ntwnfb>
"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 – in the kitchen, living room and outdoor area –
after the couple’s first child was born.
Two years earlier, the couple had married in a Sikh ceremony in Punjab, near
the India-Pakistan border. But in the subsequent eight years, her husband would
visit his wife just four times in India, staying for about a month.
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.
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.
Human rights campaigners have documented cases of abandoned brides living in
Australia, with legal recourse often complex."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
