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India wakes up to problems of
jilted NRI brides
WSN Network
NEW DELHI:
India now
plans to come to the aid of women who’ve been deserted by their NRI
husbands in foreign countries with legal and financial assistance in
order to ensure their rehabilitation and repatriation.
An
inter-ministerial committee examined and accepted several such
recommendations - made by the interministerial sub-committee - at a
meeting attended by Women and Child Development Minister Renuka
Chowdhury and Overseas Affairs Minister Vyalar Ravi on Monday. There
was agreement over the sub-committee’s recommendation that
provisions on serving notices and summons, and enforcement of
maintenance orders be made part of mutual legal assistance treaties
that are in the pipeline with different countries, including the US,
UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
It will help
women in states like
Punjab
and Kerala get their dues from their NRIs husbands, who
have deserted them. In normal circumstances, maintenance orders
passed in Indian courts have little impact as they can’t be served
to accused living abroad. Punjab alone accounts for over 15,000
women deserted by their NRI husbands. The sub-committee also
recommended that bilateral agreements be signed with other countries
to protect victims of NRI marriages.
And that such
agreements include rovisions that a divorce order of a foreign
court be effective only if endorsed by an Indian court, decrees of
Indian courts be enforceable abroad and Indian women be allowed
representation in the country where divorce petitions have been
filed against them.
9
July, 2008
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