Written by Professor Sundari Anitha
In a global world where transnational marriages are on the rise, transnational marriage abandonment (TMA) is a growing form of domestic violence that has long been ignored. TMA occurs when men with citizenship/residence rights in countries in the global north abandon their foreign national wives in their home countries. Such abandonment is intended to deprive women of their residential and financial rights in their husband’s country and commonly results in women’s destitution and further violence from their family due to the stigma associated with divorce in their home countries. Women may be separated from their children or abandoned with their children. In relation to the UK, such abandonment prevents women from accessing support that exists in the UK for migrant wives who are victims of domestic violence. Recent government estimates from India indicate that TMA affects more than 20,000 women, though no systematic data is collected on prevalence rates. Data from other countries is even more scant.
In research funded by the British Academy and conducted with Prof Anupama Roy (JNU, Delhi) in India, we documented (and named) the problem of TMA for the first time in 2016. This research evidenced how TMA commonly accompanies other forms of domestic abuse but argued that as it involves coercive and controlling behaviour, it constitutes domestic abuse in and of itself. I subsequently worked with Southall Black Sisters (SBS, a leading national domestic abuse service) to persuade the family justice system in England and Wales to recognise such abandonment as a form of domestic violence in 2017, through their Practice Direction 12j (Part 2B-3).
Following this change, a case was brought to the family courts by M, who was taken to Pakistan by her husband and father-in-law, while her two-month old daughter was left in the UK with the mother-in-law. A one-way ticket had been purchased for M but return tickets had been bought for her husband and his father. M claimed that she had refused to travel to Pakistan without her child but that she had been drugged and forcibly removed. A few days after arriving in Pakistan, her husband took her passport containing her spousal visa and returned to the UK, leaving M in Pakistan. The ruling in this case was in M’s favour and established guidelines for the family court issuing orders for stranded spouses to return to the UK to participate in family law proceedings. However, victims who were stranded abroad found that immigration officers were unwilling to act on this change and routinely prevented women’s re-entry to the UK to take part in family proceedings.
A High Court case was then brought against the Home Office by a 31-year-old woman, referred to as AM. AM was a Pakistani national married to a British citizen who suffered severe financial, physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband for years while in the UK on a spouse visa. One day, her husband effectively forced her to travel to Pakistan along with their then two-year-old daughter. Once there he took her travel documents away and returned to the UK with their daughter. Through her immigration solicitor, AM made an application for indefinite leave to remain in the UK as a victim of domestic abuse under protections available for migrant victims of domestic violence but this was refused as she was outside the UK. She eventually managed to obtain a six-month visa to enter the UK and saw her daughter again. Even though she was subsequently granted indefinite leave to remain, she pursued this case to protect other transnationally abandoned women. In a landmark ruling on 14 October 2022, Justice Lieven held that victims of TMA are unlawfully discriminated against as they are not allowed to avail reliefs available to victims of domestic violence who are in the UK on a spouse visa.
Following this ruling, I was part of a working group with Rights of Women, Immigration Law Practioners’ Association and Pragna Patel (ex-director of SBS) which advised civil servants on the creation of a new entry route to the UK for victims of TMA. Hundreds of victims of domestic violence who have been stranded abroad by their British husbands will finally get justice through this new policy which came into force on 31 January 2024. If you are a victim of transnational marriage abandonment and are outside the UK, please contact one of the domestic abuse services listed here to facilitate your application to return to the UK under this new policy. The working group has also put together this training on TMA, the new immigration rules and guidance for frontline professionals working with abandoned women to assist in their return to the UK.
Sociological Studies Research 