CNN:
Editor’s note: Carl Gierstorfer is a journalist and filmmaker with a background in biology. He has produced and directed documentaries for German public broadcaster ZDF, Discovery Channel and the BBC. His work on violence against women in India was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
The Freedom Project is a CNN project focusing on modern human trafficking.
(CNN) — Even for an employed schoolteacher like Narinder, it is hard to find a bride these days.
Narinder is a shy, slender 36-year old with a certain anxiety about him — as if he has resigned to a fate that he is unable to change. He is very polite and at first, reluctant to talk about his situation.
Narinder is one of four sons and only one of his brothers has managed to get married. In his district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, there are only858 girls born for every 1,000 boys, a ratio that doesn’t occur naturally without medical intervention. The northwestern state of Uttar Pradesh is home to one of the largest skewed sex ratios in India.
INFOGRAPHIC: India’s gender gap
“Only the rich and men with government jobs manage to get a bride these days,” he says. “Anyone who earns less cannot find a bride here anymore.”
In India’s conservative society, remaining a bachelor is not an option.
A new bride would help his parents, he says. “They would have had an easier life. They would have had someone to cook and to take care of them.”
She should clean. She should run the household. She should bear children. And Narinder plans to share her with his two unmarried brothers, who live in the same house.
But he cannot find a bride in his village, where so few exist. So, he contacted an agent to find one from another state.
Narinder may be a victim of the heavily-skewed male sex ratio in his community; more broadly, the desire to buy a bride is also fueling bride trafficking.
Decades of sex-selective abortion have created an acute lack of women in certain parts of India. Traffickers capitalize on the shortage by recruiting or kidnapping women ensnared in poverty to sell as brides. It’s a cycle influenced by poverty and medical technologies, but one that ultimately is perpetuated by India’s attitude towards women.
