Fewer Arabs Reportedly Seek Brides in New Delhi

Rich Arabs continue to fly down to the southern Indian city of Hyderabad in search of young brides, but their numbers appear to be be declining.

The United News of India news agency reported that the number of passports given to brides from this city dropped to 220 last year from more than a thousand in 1981.

This year only 160 passports were issued to women who had married Arab men. Police said publicity about alleged ill-treatment of these women by their husbands was the main reason for the decline.

The issue created a stir a few years ago when newspapers questioned this “large-scale export of women” with the help of marriage brokers.

Hundreds of well-heeled scions of Arab families are known to have flocked to this city in search of women who are renowned for their beauty.

Some women found happiness in Arab homes, but many ended up as domestic servants or in brothels. There were instances of marriages by proxy and telegraphic divorces within days of the marriage.

The news agency said such marriages had also declined because of restrictions placed by the Arab countries on marrying foreigners.

Nearly 30,000 women from Hyderabad went to gulf countries in the last decade. Lately the suitors have been from a lower social class than their predecessors.