Im/mobility as a form of gender-based violence: the case of transnationally abandoned wives in India

Transnational marriage abandonment (TMA) of women is a growing form of violence reported across India and South Asia. The spouse, most commonly a husband, lives and works in a foreign country and exploits the advantages derived from his citizenship or visa status to exercise coercion and control over the immigrating wife. TMA takes different forms, including when a woman is left behind with the in-laws while waiting for the husband to provide visa sponsorship for her migration. Such women are vulnerable to financial precarity, isolation and domestic violence from in-laws, may be dispossessed from their marital home and served with ex parte divorces.

Drawing on life-history interviews with 35 ‘never-migrant’ women conducted between 2013 and 2016, and subsequent policy and legal developments in India and the UK, this article seeks to unpack the gendered dimensions of im/mobility within TMA. Women’s immobilisation results from state migration policies, legal obstacles, patriarchal socio-cultural norms and purposive actions by husbands and their families to perpetually defer visa sponsorship and extract labour and/or money from women. Our findings indicate that immobilisation is a key facet of violence against women and legal responses to TMA must utilise a gender-based violence framework that can incorporate immobilised ‘never-migrant’ women.