Marriage and dowry scams ‘on the rise’

Horror tales of women being exploited unveiled

Aspecial needs 18-year-old Kiwi woman with the mental age of 7 is targeted by a much older Indian national for marriage in order to get permanent residence.

An Indian woman who paid thousands of dollars in dowry to marry a Kiwi Indian is now in a safe house after the husband absconded with all her belongings.

These stories have been told by a New Zealand charity which claims South Asian men are entering into sham marriages for residency and then using their status to get money from women in their home countries.

Jeet Suchdev, chairman of Auckland group Bhartiya Samaj Charitable Trust said: “Indian men are seeking out Kiwi women for marriages of convenience, and once they have New Zealand residency the men will then find women from India to extort for dowry.

“Here they will want a registered marriage to prove to Immigration NZ (INZ) that they are in a real relationship, but in India they will just want a cultural marriage so they can get married again and again.”

In one case, a woman who paid a man a significant amount in dowry arrived in Auckland only to find her “husband” already had another partner — who was complicit in the arrangement.

Suchdev said until his organisation intervened, the woman was kept by the couple as an “unpaid domestic worker” and “a sex slave”.

Dowry is a centuries old custom.

Suchdev said it is common for men to demand an initial dowry upwards of $50,000 and then make further “extortion” until the woman’s family have nothing more to give.

Roopa Suchdev, chief executive of sister organisation Roopa Aur Aap Charity, said the number of cases involving “marriage and dowry scams” is “spiralling out of control”.

The girl being wooed for marriage by the Indian national has multiple disabilities, Roopa said, which includes intellectual disability, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia.

“His main intention is to claim residency in this country through her,” she said.

“She is assessed to have a mental age of 7, so her capability of understanding is severely limited and unable to understand what is happening to her.”

In the other case, the Indian woman was convinced by her husband to return to India for IVF treatment.

But she returned last week only to find everything of value in her house, including a scooter that she takes to work, gone.

“She was so shocked and went into severe depression when she realised this has been done by her husband, who had himself left for Australia,” Roopa said.

She said both the police and INZ have been notified of the cases.

INZ assistant general manager Peter Devoy said the agency could not comment on individual cases without a privacy waiver.

In the last five years, 808 victims of domestic violence applied for residence or work visas on the basis of relationships with NZ citizens or residents that has ended because of domestic violence.

Of which, 160 residence visas and 517 work visas were approved.

Since July 2010, INZ has received more than 1300 allegations about relationship fraud and about 50 had been investigated.

“We encourage anyone being exploited to contact us safely via crimestoppers,” Devoy said.