Sunday, February 6, 2011

Indian Brides Victims of Fake Grooms

An investigative team from the Calgary Herald travelled to India recently to report that, in the province of Punjab alone, it is conservatively estimated that over 30,000 young women, some as young as 16 to18, have been defrauded and abandoned by fraudulent grooms from Canada.

The exploitation of these young women is never a one-man operation; typically it involves a whole kinship network. The Herald reported that abandoned brides now constitute an epidemic and concluded that they are victims of “organized crime”

Fraudulent grooms make stringent demands of enormous dowries, proof of a woman’s youth and virginal status, and a swift passage from agreement to marriage. Then, shortly after the wedding ceremony and a brief honeymoon, the fraudulent grooms beat a hasty exit from India back to Canada, dowry in hand.

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