BRIDES FOR SALE? Skewed sex ratio forcing men to buy brides in Haryana

Delhi: July 26, 2010

Haryana’s skewed sex ratio, which has increasingly prompted boys to marry girls from outside the state, has now led to trafficking of women from as far as Sikkim. Police rescued a girl from Sikkim, ‘‘sold’’ for Rs 50,000 in Jhajjar. The arrested woman herself had been sold for Rs 1 lakh to a Haryana boy, and then she allegedly became part of the trafficking ring. Girls are lured away on the promise of finding jobs in Haryana, where they found a growing army of bachelors desperate to get brides due to a skewed sex ratio. The girls are introduced as brides in the villages. Understanding the difficulties in finding brides for boys, villagers don’t object to such alliances, police said.

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