Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi has requested her cabinet colleague and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to rescue a 16-year-old Hyderabadi girl from Oman. Girl's parents have complained that their daughter was married to a 65-year-old Omani national without their consent.

The news has some shock value for many. But for people living in Hyderabad, this would be part of a rather awkward routine practice in the city for decades.

Early this year a film Yahan Ameena Bikti Hai narrated the story of a girl which blew off the lid of the practice of a Sheikh from the Gulf marrying a minor bride from a poor family of the Old City in Hyderabad.

This film was made in India with the help of a Cameroon-based company and was the official entry from the African country to the 89th Academy Awards held in February this year.

CHILD BRIDES OF HYDERABAD

Though in the present case, the minor was taken to Muscat by the Omani national, this is not the general practice. Arab sheikhs taking child brides from Hyderabad don't whisk them away to the Gulf.

Hyderabad has been a happy hunting ground for the rich Arabs looking for young, rather underage, brides since 1970s. The 'business' had been going on well through various rackets unabated till 1991, when the Ameena incident happened.

Ameena, then just 10, was found crying on Gulf-bound flight by air hostess Amrita Ahluwalia. Ameena had been married off to a 60-year-old man from Saudi Arabia for a price of Rs 6,000.

Ameena told Amrita Ahluwalia that the man came to her house but found her elder sister "dark and ugly". So, her father married Ameena off to the Arab man, she told the air hostess. Ahluwalia ensured that Ameena was rescued from the Arab man, who was arrested by Delhi Police when flight landed in New Delhi airport from Hyderabad.

Later, investigation unearthed bride shopping in Hyderabad by rich elderly people from the Middle East. The Ameena case created furore and anger.

The government machinery tried to put a curb on the practice thereafter. But, a 2010 survey of about 100 household in a particular locality in the Old City of Hyderabad showed that 33 families married off their girls to bride shoppers.

WHY HYDERABAD?

Hyderabad was a feudal state like several others in the gone by centuries. When it was under the rule of Nizam, it received rich influx of migrants from the Gulf region. Among them was an elite lineage of Choush Arabs.

Choush Arabs were influential migrants from Yemen in the 18th century and held high positions in the Nizam army and administration. The diaspora has maintained its links with the homeland.

While dowry continues to be practiced among the local Muslims of Hyderabad, the Choush Arabs have inherited the custom of paying bride price. Many sociologists are of the view that the practice of bride price has created a bizarre marriage market in Hyderabad - which does not look very different from sex tourism.

The rich Arabs, often called Sheikh in Hyderabad, visit the city on visitor's visa, arrange for a bride through their contacts and divorce them after their period of stay, which may last from 15 days to three months.

WHY DO PEOPLE AGREE FOR BRIDE PRICE?

The Old City of Hyderabad is the prime marriage market for child brides because of big slum population comprising of poor people migrating into the city from neighbouring areas.

Families marrying off their daughters to rich Arabs are usually the ones having very low education, skill set and earning. The money that they receive as bride price helps them run their families and arrange for a regular wedding later on.

The girls are lured into such a marriage on the pretext of living a wealthy life, moving in big cars, staying in luxury hotels and wearing new expensive dresses. Many girls are forced by their parents or dominating relatives as it happened in the latest case where an uncle allegedly took Rs 5 lakh as the bride price from the Omani national and sold the teenage girl.

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