is India becoming the land of bachelors?

Es­ti­mated reading time is 1 minute.

DROUGHT IN INDIA is changing the way mar­riages are arranged: Men seeking wives are paying large fees to traf­fickers while wives seeking hus­bands are being made promises and get­ting duped into mar­riages. Ac­cording to the ar­ticle “No Water, No Wife: How Cli­mate Change is Linked to Traf­ficking” (Freedom United, Au­gust 5, 2019), wells and other sources of water have dried up, forcing people to walk miles for water in India.

Par­ents are re­jecting would-be suitors for their daugh­ters, fearing that al­lowing their daughter to marry men from dry areas will land her in fi­nan­cial ruin. One el­i­gible, 42-year-old farm la­borer said, “The par­ents usu­ally tell me ‘no water, no daughter. Par­ents fear their girls will spend the rest of their days fetching water.”

The drought has caused a rise in sui­cides among farmers over failed crops. These sui­cides have left the farmers’ widows and their “drought or­phans” with crip­pling debt. These women then fall prey to traf­fickers looking to push them into pros­ti­tu­tion. “And with so many men des­per­ately seeking wives, traf­fickers find op­por­tu­ni­ties to lure prospec­tive brides into the re­gion from other states.”

To read the com­plete ar­ticle, click here.

The photo at the top is one of six photos from “Drought bleeds South India dry: No water for fish, birds or fish­ermen.” (The New In­dian Ex­press, Feb­ruary 27, 2017).

In India, par­ents are re­jecting suitors for their daugh­ters, fearing that al­lowing their daughter to marry men from dry areas will land her in fi­nan­cial ruin. Click To Tweet

GCC cartoon Desert idiots 500

Car­toon by Cam Cardow for Cagle Cartoons.

 

 

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