Flesh trade: Telangana fails to check Gulf marriage fraud in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: 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 Rs 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.

Crackdown on Qazis has curbed exploitation: Cops
The police say that the crackdown on Qazis who were found to be performing contract marriages in the Old City has helped to curb the explotation of girls from poor families, in a big way. For fear of getting arrested the qazis have stopped solemnising marriages of local girls with foreign nationals. “In last two years only two marriages were reported and we acted swiftly and arrested the brokers involved. In fact, the qazis are now alerting us whenever brokers approach them to solemnise a marriage and then organise a talaq,” said DCP (south) V. Satyanarayana. He added that three cases had been reported in 2013, two cases in 2015 and one each in 2016 and 2017.

“Apart from keeping a watch on the offices of Qazis, we have started awareness campaigns with the help of women groups,” explained Mr Satyanarayana.

All those who were previously involved in the rackets including middlemen and brokers are now being monitored with all their past records in the purview of the police. “Now, a police team frequently visits the houses of brokers and keeps a record of their activities,” he added. He said in this particular case, Ahmed, the Omani national went back to his country alone and later sent a visit visa for his wife. “To avoid getting caught he arranged the visit visa,” said the official.

Meanwhile, Union minister Maneka Gandhi on Thursday said she would request external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to rescue Sayeeda. Ms Gandhi took to Twitter to respond to media reports on the incident, which she termed as “deeply disturbing”. “Have asked the Commissioner of Police, Hyderabad, to investigate the case and identify the persons who forced this illegal marriage,” she tweeted.

Organised crime
In 1991, a 10 year-old girl Ameena of Tallabkatta was sold off to a 60 year-old Arab sheikh for Rs 5,000 from Saudi Arabia. The child bride was rescued on August 10, 1991 by an alert air hostess Amrita Ahluwalia when she was being taken to Saudi Arabia.

Notorious brokers who were caught

• Wahab, a matchmaker, Zohra Begum and Ghousia Begum of Teegalkunta is on the radar of the police. The trio had facilitated many 'short term marriages' of local girls with foreign nationals and were arrested by the police earlier.
• In 2005, Mumtaz was arrested by the Kalapather police after a 16 year-old girl complained of being forcefully married to a 55-year-old Arab national.