Page 7 - ELG2404 April Issue 489

NEWS
Canadian visa rule changes mean

the end for IELTS Brides

What do Canada’s visa rules have to do with young Punjabi women?

Melanie Butler reports…

n 29 March this year, The brides’ story has grabbed the
Canada’s visa rules attention of the Indian press, who
changed, quashing the claim educational travel agencies
O dreams of the so-called have turned into marriage bureaus
‘IELTS Brides’; young, poor Punjabi and that Punjabi press marriage
women with an aptitude for English adverts were filled with requests
who marry into richer families that for ‘IELTS-clean brides’.
pay for her travel and university By 2021, stories of brides leaving
fees in order to secure a Canadian or divorcing their husbands when
work visa for their sons. they got to Canada had started to
Canada has now withdrawn work break in India; a scandalous act in
rights for spouses of international a country with a divorce rate of
students on undergraduate courses, just 1%.
bringing this practice to an end. Manisha Gulati, Chairperson of
This clampdown follows a bout the Punjabi Women’s Association,
of agent scams, which sadly lured told Channel 18 television they
Indian students into breaking had heard of some ‘cheating’
visa law. women, but this was nothing
Though this change in work compared to the 30,000 frauds of
rights affects the ambitions of Non-resident Indian men.
IELTS bride – which the Gazette ‘Contract marriages to go abroad
first reported on in June 2020 – it is an old Punjabi social problem …
does not appear to be caused by we need stringent laws to protect
them. both women and men,’ said Gulati.

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