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-- At 32, lifelong Vancouverite Christine Nevedica Mehta claims she has endured more than any woman should: a sham marriage that included verbal and physical abuse, rape, and, now, $10,000 in child-support payments owed her by her ex-husband. It started when she agreed to an arranged marriage 12 years ago. Her ex, she said, falsely wooed her while he was on vacation in Canada, from India. He used her, she claimed, to immigrate and then sponsor his parents. It was not a real marriage, she said.
"These people enter the country, they bypass our laws, and the government can't put a stop to it," she told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview May 29. "What's happening to our rights? Our Canadian rights?"
On June 7, Mehta will be one of eight Canadians speaking out at a meeting organized by NDP MLA Raj Chouhan (Burnaby-Edmonds). It's a step toward legislation that may help prevent shams: the international term for immigration-inspired false marriage. Shajila Singh, who will speak at the meeting, claimed her sham marriage cost her $27,000 because her ex-husband went on welfare, for which she had to reimburse the province (for details see www.shajila.com/).
Under immigration laws, a Canadian who sponsors a foreign spouse must be financially responsible for him or her for 10 years. Chouhan has two solutions. First, deport any immigrant involved in a sham marriage. Second, eliminate the law that makes sham-marriage victims responsible for their spouses' finances. --
