The following story in the Indianapolis Star includes quotes from Unchained At Last, the only nonprofit in the US dedicated to helping women leave arranged/forced marriages.
The woman from India came to Indiana to visit family. Shortly after arriving, she discovered her mother had arranged her marriage, a not-uncommon practice in their culture.
But this marriage would turn into a violent and degrading four-month ordeal.
She was forced to have sex with her husband and do nearly round-the-clock household labor, police say. She was routinely referred to as “b—-” by her husband, uncle and aunt; and slapped and choked. Her life was threatened.
She barely ate and had to sleep on the floor without covers.
But this week, the woman will get some measure of relief when her husband, Lakhvir Singh, 28, is sentenced in Marion County Superior Court.
“I want the maximum punishment and justice to be served,” the woman told The Indianapolis Star. The Star does not generally identify victims of sexual abuse or assault. “I don’t want this to happen to any other girl. My voice can finally be heard.”
A week ago, a jury found Singh guilty of criminal deviate conduct, domestic battery, rape, sexual battery and strangulation.
Singh was found not guilty of another charge: promotion of human trafficking. He also was acquitted on separate counts of rape, deviate sexual misconduct and sexual battery.
His sentencing is scheduled for Friday, and he faces six to 20 years in prison for the most serious charges.
Singh’s lawyer, Jack Crawford, says the woman made up the allegations to get out of a marriage she didn’t like and to secure a visa for victims of human trafficking.
“She was in a marriage where she did some things she didn’t want to do and tried to get out of it,” Crawford said. “The blame here lies with the parents for forcing them both into a marriage they did not want.”
But the victim’s brother says she has the emotional and physical scars to prove the allegations.
“She is finally getting her confidence back, but it will take a long time,” said her brother, who called police when he found out about the abuse. The Star is not naming the brother to help further protect her identity.
“She had to repeat the experience at the trial, so it will be sometime before she is normal.”
Marriage a surprise
The brother was a graduate student at Purdue University when the woman came with their mother from India to visit him in May 2010.
But shortly after arriving, her mother told her she had arranged a marriage with Singh, who then lived in New Castle, Ind., said Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Detective Jon Daggy.
“That is something in the culture you don’t go against the mother’s wishes about,” Daggy said.
The couple later moved to an apartment in Indianapolis. No certificate of marriage was ever filed with the State of Indiana, according to a probable cause document filed with Marion Superior Court. A religious ceremony, however, occurred at a Sikh temple in Indianapolis.
Cheryl Thomas, director of the women’s rights program at Advocates for Human Rights, a national nonprofit based in Minneapolis, said arranged marriages can be dangerous.
“This is a problem in many countries where women are forced into marriages that they don’t want to be in,” she said. “They’re vulnerable, particularly if they don’t have any education or access to employment that can give them some independence.
Once she moved into Singh’s home, the woman “never felt like a wife but was made a servant” against her will, Daggy wrote in the probable cause affidavit. She often worked from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m., police said, attending to members of Singh’s family, such as an aunt, uncle and cousins who often stayed at the apartment. She prepared multiple meals per day, police said, and was required to clean all rooms of the home each day. She also did laundry for Singh and his relatives.
Singh and his family members did not call the woman by her name, the document states, but rather referred to her as “kutt” — a Punjabi word for “b—-.”
Singh threatened to kill the woman if she left his home, police said, and discouraged her from contact with the outside world. The woman does not speak English.
The woman was denied the privileges she provided others, police said. She was ordered to use detergent for washing Singh’s and his relatives’ clothing but not to use it for her own, the document states. She was forced to sleep on the floor rather than on a bed or couch, she told police, and was not even given her own blanket.
Singh regularly beat the woman, the detective wrote, when she sought to avoid having sex with him and whenever he became upset with the quality of her household work.
Unpaid servitude
Singh’s lawyer, Crawford, said the victim was able to get a T-visa, which is good for four years, because she lodged the human trafficking complaint.
But he said the jury acquitted on the human trafficking charge because they “they didn’t believe she was forced into servitude.”
“The statute says you must harbor in a condition of forced labor and involuntary servitude,” Crawford said. “But that was not the case.”
Singh did allow the woman to talk to relatives by phone, the document states, but tried to control what she told them. One of the first occasions of physical abuse, she told police, was when Singh slapped and choked her after hearing her tell her mother about her living conditions.
It was a conversation with a relative, however, that finally allowed the woman to win her escape from Singh. Seeing a phone on a couch while Singh was in a bathroom, the document states, the woman called her brother for help. Her brother called 911, the document states, and asked that police check on his sister’s welfare.
Police arranged for the woman to move to a secure location away from Singh, the document states, as they investigated her allegations.
The prosecutor’s office filed charges against Singh on Feb. 8, 2012, after a months-long investigation.
The victim’s brother says she told him her doubts about Singh early on, but he was so consumed with school at the time he didn’t heed the warnings. She told him that her future husband had acted like a “bully” on the phone.
“I now regret it,” he said. “I should have raised my voice against my mother.”
Fraidy Reiss, founder and executive director of Unchained At Last, a New Jersey-based nonprofit that helps women forced into arranged marriages, says the practice can present risks.
“Women who are brought to the U.S. as part of an arranged marriage think they are going to have a great life when they get here. But in some cases, they’re physically, sexually and emotionally abused,” she said. “They’re treated as slaves. They’re unpaid servants.”
“By no means am I saying that all arranged marriages are abusive,” Reiss said. “What I am saying is that it is much more difficult to leave an arranged marriage.”
