27/02/2017 Inside Out London

For many British men with family roots in the Indian subcontinent,

it's not that uncommon to head overseas for an arranged marriage.

But what happens when those relationships don't work out?

Well, the consequences for brides who are cast off by their British

husbands can be devastating.

Many will be shunned by their own communities,

and some are subjected to financial exploitation, domestic

slavery and physical abuse.

In this special programme, Chris Rogers meets outcast wives

who open up for the first time about their painful experiences,

and how they're trying to rebuild new lives

for themselves here in London.

He also travels to India to uncover the shocking scale of the problem.

Not a day has come in my life where you only feel that

you want to end this right now.

Sorry...

Breaking the wall of silence -

The wives separated from their husbands,

shunned by their communities and treated as tainted goods.

The moment their daughter has been left by her husband,

her status becomes zero, nil!

The impact for women who are left, who are abandoned

is quite devastating.

It's leaving them almost in chains within their society.

With thousands of brides branded as outcasts,

we reveal the injustices and indignities many of them encounter.

They marry us, that bring us over, then they treat us like a dirty rag.

Ritu has just arrived from India.

She's embarking on an extraordinary personal mission to find

her estranged husband.

I am feeling a bit nervous as well as emotional,

as I have not seen this man since one and a half years.

I don't know how he will react when he sees me.

She's used up all her savings and put her teaching career on hold

to come to London and get out of a marriage in which

she feels abandoned.

I felt betrayed.

I felt that my whole world has been disturbed or shaken and shattered.

The wedding was very, very beautiful.

When the ceremony starts a lot of people coming in giving

you their blessings.

As you are posing for those photos, what is going through your mind?

You're happy, of course.

The day has come in your life when you got your life partner,

you're going to spend a life with him and it really feels,

you feel content inside.

In fact, Ritu barely knew her groom.

It was an arranged marriage and before exchanging vows she had

only ever met him for one single hour.

So, tell me about the first time you laid eyes on Vikram.

How did you feel?

How did you find him?

In India the arranged marriage is a really common concept, so...

Vikram had come to my place prior to the marriage was finalised,

prior one week before

the wedding and it was just a normal chat.

I mean, what's your likes and your dislikes?

What are your dreams of life?

And what he has been doing in London.

You're meeting a stranger for the first time, and he's

going to be a husband, so at the back of the mind...

You are nervous, you are excited, you are attracted towards him.

Ritu insists she did not feel pressured into the marriage,

but the wedding took place just 48 hours after they had met.

We literally had one day, me and my family and my

relatives, to prepare

the wedding as much as we could.

We arranged everything, the temple we'd

get married, the dinner after the wedding and everything.

The wedding night, was it what you hoped?

It didn't go well, to be frank.

Vikram had a flight early in the morning, so he left in the

midnight.

We did not even spend a night together.

After returning to the UK, he assured Ritu that he would

arrange for her to join him.

But within four months, the relationship became strained

and Ritu's visa application, which required her husband's

support, was never completed.

She now wants a divorce, but in India it is extremely

difficult to divorce an absent spouse.

She feels trapped in a meaningless marriage to a man she barely knows

and might never meet again.

Sometimes I have to really curse myself that why did

I take the decision, I could have taken some time.

I could have asked him not to get married so soon.

Not a day has come in my life where you really feel that

you want to end this now.

Sorry...

There are believed to be tens of thousands of women

left in limbo like Ritu.

Many are Brides from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh,

who claim they have been cast aside, abandoned,

by their British husbands.

For some of these wives, abandonment is just the final

incident in a relationship that was characterised

with abuse and deceit from even before the wedding.

During their marriage, many of these women are exploited

for financial gain, others are forced into domestic slavery

and some are even duped into giving up their children.

We are looking at thousands of women, so this is

not an insignificant number.

We're only beginning to touch and scratch

the surface of the problem.

But we see is a continuum of sexual violence that

have been subjected to, physical, sexual, financial,

emotional abuse and the end process is often abandonment.

Kulwant was bought to the UK from India by her British national

husband four years ago.

She says that as well as being treated as a domestic slave her

husband subjected her to violence every day.

In desperation, Kulwant says she eventually picked

up her son and ran away.

That was 18 months ago and ever since, her husband has

refused any contact with her.

Along with her son, Kulwant now lives in temporary accommodation

and with the help of a charity she's trying to rebuild her life.

I have travelled from London to Punjab, the north of India ?

it's the same journey that every year hundreds of Indian British

nationals make looking for a wife.

At a secret location in Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab,

a special meeting for women is being held.

Most of the women here are married to men from abroad and,

according to the head of the charity who organised this event,

many have something else in common ? their husbands have deserted them.

More and more girls are in such a big mess.

I see a lot of beautiful educated women, they are in a mess.

Generally, it's 15 case a month.

It's increasing.

In this region alone, the local authority estimates

that there are well over 15,000 abandoned wives.

Their husbands come from all over the world, but British men

are thought to account for over one-third of these cases

and for many of these grooms the motivation is not love,

it's money.

Usually, it's like this - he comes here and he asks

for massive money from the dowry and they marry,

the girls' parents give the dowry, he took the money,

he enjoys his honeymoon months and then, he never comes back.

Despite being outlawed since 1961, in India it is customary

for the bride's family to give money or gifts to the groom prior

to the wedding ceremony.

These dowries often amount to tens of thousands of pounds

and it doesn't end there!

A lot of women say that well after the marriage,

dowry demands continue, and, ultimately, when they cannot

meet dowry demands, they are abandoned.

In a rural village on the outskirts of Punjab, Kalmajit married a man

from Europe three years ago.

To pay for the dowry and the wedding, her father scraped

together almost all of his life savings.

Within days of accepting his hand in marriage, Kamaljit's

says her husband started complaining about the dowry.

Eventually, says Kalmajit, her husband abandoned her

and returned to Italy.

She claims he left her even though she was pregnant.

Just a few weeks later, Kalmajit's daughter died,

but even then she says her husband did not contact her.

Eventually, says Kalmajit, her husband abandoned her

and returned to Italy.

She claims he left her even though she was pregnant.

Just a few weeks later, Kalmajit's daughter died,

but even then she says her husband did not contact her.

Many women like Kalmajit still desperately hope to revive

marriages with husbands who have left them, because the alternative

carries a heavy stigma.

Life as an abandoned woman in India means

living as an outcast, an outcast wife.

The impact for women who are left, who are being abandoned, is quite

devastating, because it can affect her job prospects.

It can affect the way the community view her.

And the way they view their families as well.

It can affect, if she has children, how the children are seen,

how the children are raised, and if you come from very poor

environments, very poor families, then actually what that is doing

is adding additional pressure to the family and a sort

of additional reputation risk.

She feels she has no value and society makes it

sure she has no value.

The problem is that serious.

It could lead to a suicidal attempt.

And there have been hundreds of examples where parents

have committed suicide.

The dishonour of being branded as an abandoned wife is one

of the factors that propelled Ritu to come to London

in search of her husband.

If I have to talk about back in India, it is very difficult

to come out of this situation, you're kind of in a standstill,

you don't know where to go, what to do, how things will be.

First of all, it is a very bad thing the way people look at you.

You feel some shameful, that you have been betrayed,

left out by your husband.

You just don't want this part of your life now.

Ten days after arriving in London, Ritu's had no success

in tracking down her husband, so she's come to a woman's group,

seeking advice and support.

So, basically to sum it up, he doesn't want to know you.

Literally, you just want to end the relationship, but trying to find

the reason behind it, but at the end of the day you can't

go back, you can't move forward, you are stuck, stagnant.

That's a very horrible position to be in.

I think you cannot ever answers to the questions

you are looking for, because from what you said you can't

expect any sanity from him.

If she finds him, Ritu wants to ask her husband for a divorce.

But most wives left in India never get the opportunity to do this.

UK immigration rules prohibit them from entering the country.

She will have problems in serving him in England,

because she cannot come in as a visitor because she has

to disclose she has a husband and she is married to a British

national and once she discloses that she will be asked why aren't

you applying for a spousal visa, and a spousal visa needs

a husband support, so she is caught in catch 22.

Unable to obtain a divorce via the British courts,

abandoned wives must turn to the Indian judicial system.

Today, like every day, in Chandigarh, the legal office that

deals with marital issues is busy.

Some of the women and families here are desperately seeking

help to advance criminal and divorce proceedings against absent husbands.

After the wedding, when I arrived to London.

What happened?

He said I don't love you, I just like you.

He married me only because his parents told him to.

Then I found out that he has ditched me and left me.

After one week.

In India, it's been a year, since I've lodged a legal complaint.

He has committed the crime, he has ditched me but I am suffering here.

Getting a divorce from a spouse who lives abroad is a complex,

expensive process in India.

Some of the parents here have been trying to get

a resolution for their abandoned daughters for years.

Our legal system is little bit slow, it will take years and years to get

the decision.

There are a number of difficulties, of hurdles

for each and every step, and more over these girls don't have

is the money to pay for the legal system, even to go from one station

to the other for the documentation and there is no direct

legal system available, where she could apply

as in a domestic marriage, if it fails.

Abandoned wives are not only at the mercy of the courts when it

comes to obtaining a divorce - many face legal difficulties,

if their husbands take their children.

Six years ago, Sonali got married in Pakistan.

Her husband, a British national, arranged for her to come and live

with him and her in-laws in London.

I came here and I was seven months pregnant.

I was thinking everything would be fine and my life would be better

but they treated me like a slave or servant in their house

and they never allowed me to go outside.

Shortly after she had given birth, Sonali says her husband suggested

a family holiday back in Pakistan to help her recover.

On their second night abroad, he was out with friends but phoned

her with a strange demand.

My husband called me first and said, "I am coming to pick up my son

because a few relatives are coming from Karachi, the city in Pakistan,

and they need to see him."

He just took my son from me and I don't know why I was feeling

scared that time, I don't know, but I just called him again

and again, but suddenly his phone was switched off.

Eventually, Sonali realised her husband had been

deceiving her all along.

He had taken her three-month old baby and left the country.

I was thinking there is no reason to live.

I cry every day, every other minute.

Most of the time I start talking with his clothes.

When I went to sleep in the night, I put his clothes

with my pillow and no-one take him, because he is my son

and he is sleeping here.

My mother is like, "No this is not your son,

this is just his clothes."

Abandoned in Pakistan, Sonali had no clue how

she would access legal help to get her son back

until she came across the website of a UK based charity.

If there are children involved, there are some legal remedies

available, not easy, but there are.

Fortunately, that is a situation which the judiciary have woken up

to, there has been case developments that allow women even if they're

abandoned and abroad to bring proceedings here.

Southall Black Sisters secured a specialist family lawyer,

who made the child a ward of court and arranged for Sonali

to return to the UK, where her case was heard in the High Court.

The High Court has said, because it's a British national child,

and the best interest of the child are a paramount that the force

of the law should and could be used, so that the child could be reunited

with his mother, and the husband was in effect, ordered

to support her immigration application to allow her

to come back to the UK.

Sonali has been granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK under

the domestic violence act.

It means she will not have to return to Pakistan,

where abandoned wives and their children

are often persecuted.

Six weeks on, and Ritu still has not found her husband.

Her time in London is running out, but she's found a charity that

have agreed to offer her some general advice.

Have you had any contact with him?

No, I've not spoken to him yet.

I need to find out where he's staying, so up to now

I have not spoken to him.

Did you know what legal rights you had before you got to the UK?

No, I did not know anything.

The reason is that I wanted to know how far I can go in London

and will there be a closure to the relationship?

Will there be more quicker in London?

That was the main reason to come here.

So in an ideal world, What possible outcome

would you like from these discussions and these proceedings?

You cannot force anyone to love you and I really feel that

if he doesn't want to, we can come to a closure

and move ahead.

That's what I want to happen and the reason why I am here.

What we tend to do for our clients, is to create a positive action plan,

so we sit down and we say, "Right, this is where you are and this

is where you want to be.

How can we help you to get there?"

I appreciate that you are doing it, because at this point I feel

so isolated, and really want someone to talk to,

to just tell them what I am going through right now.

I feel like the emotions that are going into this process

are too much to carry on.

There are only a handful of charities that specifically

support women in Ritu's situation.

They have recently been overwhelmed with new cases,

triggering calls for more systematic help from Governments and legal

agencies across the globe.

What we want to see is a better harmonisation

of law, so that a woman

can be granted a divorce in one country and have it

recognised in another.

A woman can be granted a maintenance order in one country and have it

recognised in another, but also that governments and state agencies

cooperate so if a woman is denied a right by sending her to another

country, she is not stuck in international limbo.

Where a spousal visa is issued, we would wish to see a system

to where the HO is pro-active, at the end of the two year period,

if she has not made an application for indefinite leave to remain,

to take some steps to find her and ask her, "Why

haven't you applied, are you still in the UK and if

you're not still in the UK, why not?"

At least so she may become aware of her own rights.

Ritu has finally found an address for her estranged husband.

She decides that she wants to go there today.

I don't know how Vikram will react to it and I don't know how

I will hold my emotions.

I just want to know why my husband has abandon me from this marriage,

why doesn't he let go of the relationship.

So I really hope I get my answers today.

This is the first time Ritu will see her husband in over

eighteen months and due to the sensitivity of the situation,

we chose not to film it.

It was...

It was really sad that Vikram did not even recognise me.

He doesn't want to answer any of my questions.

In fact, the meeting was tense and her husband called the police.

I spoke to the police, they said, "You need to go to India

and get this sorted."

Now if the police can't help me, where will I go?

I was expecting that it will be worth coming here,

but I don't think so, because if I go back to India

again, I know that he will never, Vikram will never return,

will never come home to India to divorce me.

So, I don't know when this will end.

Ritu's husband denied all of her claims.

There are no second chances for her to speak to him in the UK.

Her flight back to India leaves tomorrow and she

cannot afford to return.

Unable to secure a divorce from their British husbands,

many south Asian wives resign themselves to a life of injustice.

A life where their chances of meeting another partner,

of having a level of respect in their communities are diminished.

Yet their British husbands face no such cultural barriers.

They are free to continue their lives

as they wish.

Ritu is leaving London.

She is departing without securing a divorce, but with hope and faith

that she will be able move forward with her life.

When I was getting the blessings, you feel that

inner strength in you, and you feel so positive,

the vibrations around you and you just think, "Yes,

things are going to work out," and I hope with the grace of God,

that I just get what I want.

Chris Rogers there.

And if you'd like to know more about any of the

organisations detailed in that report, then head to our website.

I'll give you the address in just a moment, but first,

let's take a quick look at what's coming up in next week's programme.

How much pollution does your daily routine expose you to?

It is something that worries us.

We are bringing up children here.

It's a wonderful place to be, but are we harming them?

We offer top tips on how to cut it down.

We find out how one amateur film-maker

captures the capital's most elusive wildlife.

It was a way of getting out to the hares silently.

If you do it slowly, all of a sudden, you can

be within 20 feet of them.

And you're down at their level?

It's all about eyelevel.

You get the best shots at that, really.

And we go in search of London's lost ghost sights.

This sign was painted in the mid-1920s.

It's got a lot of elements to it.

It's got some beautiful lettering.

In a sense, they are still whispering, quietly away and

we are allowed to hear that if we take the time

to look and listen.

And that's all from this week's Inside Out London.

If you missed any of tonight's shower, though, and

you'd like to catch up on the iPlayer, or if you want any

information about any of the organisations featured

in tonight's programme, then head to our website.

The address is bbc.co.uk/inside out and then just click on London.

Thanks very much for watching. See you again next week.

Hello, I'm Riz Lateef with your 90-second update.

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