Gurmit Kaur from Punjab got the shock of her life when she discovered the truth about her husband. She married Manjit Singh in 2000 thinking he was an NRI settled in the US. He took Rs.4.5 lakh in dowry and another Rs.1.5 lakh from Gurmit’s relative while going abroad promising to send her immigration papers. The papers never came. Instead she learnt that he was already married and had a son. He was not living in the US but was an unskilled worker in Seoul. She finally filed a criminal complaint.
This is not a rare case. Indian women marrying NRI’s, glamorous though it sounds, has recently become a cause of serious concern. The reason for this is the alarmingly high rates of desertion of women marrying NRI’s. From September 24, 2009 and November 30, 2011, the National Commission of Women (NCW) has registered 796 such complaints. In simpler terms this is like one complaint reaching NCW every day.
One of key obstacles faced in taking the errant spouses to task is serving court notices. This is primarily due to absence of correct overseas addresses of spouses due to which notice does not get served, without which the court cannot proceed. Many husbands often use the lenient laws in foreign countries to obtain ex parte divorces from foreign courts. This becomes a weapon in their hands to deny maintenance to women who are dumped in India. Since the NRIs rely on foreign court granted divorces, the women only come to know through foreign court notices about the divorce.
To address this issue, the Telangana State Commission for Women along with NCW have recommended that the Union Government needs to enter into agreements with other countries to catch the NRIs duping Indian women after marriage.
At the national level, vide an order in 2008, the NCW was nominated as the Coordinating agency for issues related to NRI marriages. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) also has a scheme for providing legal / financial assistance to Indian women deserted by their overseas Indian / foreigner husbands. In a circular, the MEA has stipulated that Indians married in India or abroad, who want to remove or change the name of the spouse after a foreign court has granted divorce, will now have to submit a declaratory order from an Indian court. This means that Indian court’s order will be essential before applying for changes in the passport. Earlier, an authentication from the MEA or a divorce decree granted by a foreign country’s court sufficed. However, the changes became necessary after increasing number of fraud cases came to light.
The government, at its end, has taken the initiative of setting up a committee to formulate a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for dealing with NRIs abandoning their wives. This was needed in light of several such complaints being received by the Women and Child Development Ministry.
This issue was also brought forth before the Rajya Sabha Committee of Petitions in 2016. The Committee was advised that Section 14 of the Foreign Marriage Act, 1969 has provisions to help women married to NRIs facing problems abroad. This section provides a mechanism for a marriage certificate being issued which “shall be deemed to be conclusive evidence of the fact that a marriage under this Act has been solemnized”. However, on the face of it, a marriage certificate would only be a piece of paper unless further steps are taken to give it weight and make it recognised abroad. Looking at safeguarding rights of women from a legal perspective, there are adequate enabling legal safeguards securing the rights of women. Constitution of India, under Article 15(3) empowers the state to make any special provision for women.
Further under Article 51A (e), it is the duty of every citizen of India to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women.
Legislatively, the key legal safeguard available with women is Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 pertaining to cruelty. However, since this provision does not directly pertain to desertion, the relief available to affected women is not suitable. In 2012, the Passports Act was amended and a new provision was added to confiscate passports of people having suspicious marital records. According to NCW and the Ministry of Women and Child Development, passports of NRI grooms are being impounded by the Passport Office if they have deserted their wives. In addition, a women grievance section with helpline has also been floated so that deserted brides can register complaints.
In this regard, the Law Commission of India in 2009 advocated the need for family law legislation for NRIs. The Commission suo moto took up this study and made the following recommendations : “(a) Registration of marriages must be made compulsory; (b) dissolution of marriage on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage be introduced in the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Special Marriage Act, 1954; (c) Where one of the spouses is an NRI, parallel additions must be made in the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Special Marriage Act, 1954 to provide for provisions for maintenance and alimony of spouses, child custody and child support and as also settlement of matrimonial property.”
The Supreme Court, at its own end, has issued several judgements declaring that divorce under a marriage under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 cannot be granted by any court out of India. In Neeraja Sharaph v. Jayant V.Sharaph, the Supreme Court emphasized the need to consider a legislation safeguarding the interests of women.
Further, it suggested specific provisions to ensure that no marriage taking place in India, between an NRI and an Indian woman, is annulled by a foreign court. They have also recommended that in case of a divorce, adequate alimony be paid to the wife out of the share of the property of the husband both in India and abroad. The Court stated that the “decree granted by Indian courts may be made executable in foreign courts both on principle of comity and by entering into reciprocal agreements like Section 44-A of the Civil Procedure Code which makes a foreign decree executable as it would have been a decree passed by that court”.
In 2006, the Supreme Court in Seema v. Ashwani Kumar, issued a mandate to all States to make registration of marriages compulsory by enacting legislations. This was done after the court took into consideration the views of the NCW which favoured a Central legislation on registration of marriages. The rationale was to weed out the lacunae existing in state laws.
Nonetheless, the statistics as on date present a sorry state of affairs.
In an unstarred question in July 2015, Minister of State for External Affairs General VK Singh said that the Ministry had taken up 203 cases of fraudulent cases in 12 Indian missions abroad between 2012 to 2015. But the numbers may be far more. In 2009, then NCW Chief Girija Vyas said that two out of 10 NRI marriages end in desertion in the honeymoon alone.
Punjab tops the list of states facing the problem of NRI desertions followed by Andhra Pradesh. In 2008, the then Union Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs had stated that at least 20,000 legal cases against NRI husbands, presumably for abandoning wives, were pending in Punjab alone.
Recognising the enormity of problem in Punjab, the state government, at its own end, has undertaken extensive measures to check the problem. A special law by the name of Punjab Compulsory Registration of Marriages Act was enacted in 2012 making it mandatory that all marriages between two Indians or an Indian and an NRI/foreign national need to be registered. This law applies to people irrespective of their religion, caste or creed. At the time of marriage, the NRI or foreign national is also required to disclose and mention in writing the passport number and other related details including the permanent residential/official address in the overseas country.
The Punjab Government has also set up an NRI Affairs Department and a State Commission for NRIs. The Punjab Police has a special ‘NRI Affairs’ cell with a website listing dos and don’ts for NRI marriages. To spread awareness about the law on compulsory marriage registration, video advertisements have been uploaded by the Government of Punjab. There are even some special law firms in Punjab dealing with NRI’s and issues related thereto.
This is not to say that efforts are not being undertaken by other states. Several states and the Centre have sought to introduce laws making it mandatory for all marriages to be registered. At the Central level, following the Supreme Court orders, in 2012, a Bill to amend the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969 was introduced in the Rajya Sabha to include the registration of marriages within its purview. The Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha but eventually lapsed. Meanwhile, several states such as Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Meghalaya have come out with a special law for registration of marriages. However, none of these laws make any special reference to NRI/PIO marriage registration.
Given the scale of the problem and its domino effect on the deserted brides and their families, it is essential that holistic and planned efforts be undertaken. So the question is what next? One way is for the Union Government to enter into pacts with other countries to ensure that foreign courts refrain from granting divorce to people married under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. There is also a need for state laws for compulsory registration of marriages especially those with NRIs. Following the Punjab model, details of the whereabouts of the NRIs must be recorded. Further, strict penal provisions are needed to prosecute NRIs deserting their Indian brides. What is also needed is awareness generation which could be done through videos like the one by Punjab. These are some starting points for resolving this burgeoning issue.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.
On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.