A Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) report has warned that “marriages of convenience” in India “have become a threat to the integrity of Canada’s immigration program.”
Lexbase, Canada’s leading immigration publication under well-known lawyer Richard Kurland, obtained the May 2013 report under Access to Information from the “Migration Intelligence Section, Intelligence Operations and Analysis Division-Enforcement and Intelligence Operations Directorate” of CBSA.
The report bluntly notes: “There are already reports of less Indian females being born within Canada’s border, and given that the Indo-Canadian communities have strong preferences for intra-cultural marriage, there will be more competition for men to find opposite-sex marriage partners leading to possible increased family pressure on Indo-Canadian females to marry Indian men from Canada or abroad, as the children who were born after the sonogram revolution come to be of marriageable age.”
The report also pointed out what it said was another disturbing trend: “Islamic sexual tourism.”
It referred to the trend of “mut’a (an Arabic word relating to joy and fulfillment of enjoyment and compliance when used in terms of marriage and observing the requirements of the marriage contract in Islam) where women are purchased and forced to marry wealthy Muslim men from the Middle East and Africa for short periods of time for sexual purposes and then divorced in short order. One article refers to it as ‘Islamic sexual tourism.’ The practice happens in southern India because the cost to do so is one-third the price in the men’s homeland.”
The report said: “The percentage of sponsors whose spouses’ cases were refused who chose to appeal between 2008 and 2011 is very high at between 59% and 75%. Indian nationals in the FC [Family Class] are highly motivated to immigrate to Canada and will use all possible avenues at their disposal, including the appeals process to do so.”
REFERRING to marriages of convenience, the report states:
“As this trend is increasing, it is important that CBSA and CIC [Citizenship and Immigration Canada] officers are informed about this issue, and equipped with the necessary tools to identify this illicit activity.”
“The Republic of India is a high-risk country for marriages of convenience. It has been estimated that as much as 36% of the spousal caseload may be fraudulent.”
“The Rakshak Foundation created the following list outlining the motivations for Indian individuals to engage in a fraudulent marriage:
– Concealment of material facts – marital status, education, age, medical / health conditions
– To seek easy immigration to foreign shores for self and family (parents and siblings)
– Fulfilling academic ambitions of acquiring a foreign degree
– Leading a lavish lifestyle marked with extravagance
– Flaunting an NRI status in community
– To draw from the source(s) of funds made available through overseas Indian spouse’s income
– To gain an entry into foreign lands to reunite with their paramours
– Extort money by filing false and frivolous charges / cases
– To seek hefty alimony by resorting to divorce thereby facilitating easy money for a lavish lifestyle
“The dynamics and changing demographics of Indian marriage: The overall birthrate for India is in decline with a 3.9% decrease in birthrates between the 1991 to 2001 decade and the 2001 to 2011 decade. There were five million less children between the ages of zero and six years old in 2011 versus 2001. There is a well-documented preference for the birth and care of boys over girls in India, and the sex ratio of females to males in India was 940:1000 versus the global ratio of 984:1000 in 2011. The overall sex ratio was at its lowest in 1991 in India at 927 females per 1000 males. In some regions in India, such as Punjab, in 1991 it was 882 females, and 875 for females between the ages of 0-6. In 2001 the number dipped even lower at 874 for all females and 793 for females between the ages of 0-6 (a 9% decrease in females in this age group over a 10 year period). The 100 million plus females missing in the world are a result of three factors coalescing: the ancient preference for sons; a modern desire for smaller families; and ultrasound scanning and other technologies that identify the sex of the fetus.”
“There are already reports of less Indian females being born within Canada’s border, and given that the Indo-Canadian communities have strong preferences for intra-cultural marriage, there will be more competition for men to find opposite-sex marriage partners leading to possible increased family pressure on Indo-Canadian females to marry Indian men from Canada or abroad, as the children who were born after the sonogram revolution come to be of marriageable age. Possible consequences of:
– Polyandrous marriages of females to more than one man from the same family;
– Polyandrous marriages to males who are unrelated to each other;
– Increased sex trafficking specifically for the purpose of marriage (forced marriage);
– Increased sexual violence and abuse against women and female children;
– Increased number of child marriages
– Increased maternal deaths due to abortions and early marriages.”
