TS fails to check Gulf marriage fraud in city

Brokers get away scot-free by manipulating the system

The broad and tightly meshed network of flesh trade brokers that spreads across India and caters mainly to buyers from Middle East countries, has time and again sold off underage girls by pretending to get them married.

The issue once again came into focus with a woman Sayeeda approaching the Falaknuma police alleging that her daughter aged 16 was married to an Omani national without her consent. The marriage was performed three months ago and the Arab national paid `5 lakh to the brokers Ghousia, Sajid and Haji. The girl was later sent to Muscat by the agents. However, the mother of the girl said she was not even aware of the marriage. Now the Omani, identified as Ahmed, was demanding back his money if Sayeeda wanted her daughter back.

Ms Jameela Nishath, a social activist working on women’s issues in the Old City says that many brokers earned lakhs of rupees as commission for facilitating these marriages. The modus operandi of these criminals is to have their partners in foreign countries look for prospective clients and then contact their counterparts in Hyderabad to fix the marriage.

“Most of the families are very poor and do not follow up the cases with the police. In most of the cases either the brokers do not adhere to court summons or the police fail to file charge-sheets in time. The brokers are very affluent and hire expensive lawyers and get away scot-free,” says Ms Nishath.

Majlis Bachao Tehreek leader Amjedullah Khan says that police has failed in curbing the menace’and this is evident from the fact that in most of the cases the same middlemen are involved. He points out that in the latest case reported at Falaknuma police station on Wednesday, the broker Ghousia who incidentally is a relative of the teenager, was previously involved in similar other cases too.

“If the brokers’ activities are monitored, will they repeatedly get involved in such crimes? Unless the network of the middlemen and agents is broken, this exploitation will continue unabated,” Mr Khan said.

In the 1990s, rich Arabs from Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and other countries in the Middle-East region were the main buyers of young girls but 2000 onwards, rich Somalians and Nigerians have also joined in.

Ms Shakira Parveen, another woman activist from Old City informed that in most of the cases the families are lured with the promise of a bright future for their daughters. “Family members are unaware that a divorce document is signed at the time of marriage itself. After the foreign national leaves the city, either it is sent by post or the Qazi hands it over to the family,” she said.