"WE wanted that the journey of this book should start from Punjab and that's why I told the author and my sister to launch 'Lives On the Brink' first in Chandigarh, as it's most needed in this part of India," noted Dr Kiran Bedi, as she released Anu Peshawaria's book 'Lives On the Brink' at the Law Auditorium, Panjab University, on Monday.
Peshwaria is a noted and respected immigration lawyer based in San Francisco and is associated with various consulates in the US, consistently working on law reforms and providing free legal aid to Indian women in the US. And it's Peshwaria's long experience of more than 25 years that forms the core of book.
Dealing with cases of Indian girls married to NRIs and facing both abuse and torture at their hands, Peshawaria says through the book she wants to tell people about all that happens when the dreams of young, innocent girls are crashed to the ground, as soon as they reach the US after their marriage.
"Ignorance about immigration laws, visa procedures and no reference checks are the major causes why women are taken for a ride. Divorced, thrown out of their houses, abused within months of their marriage, many have nowhere to go," Peshwaria talks about a young woman whose husband is a doctor in America and disappeared soon after marriage. "The woman's daughter is now 16 and has never met her father. She later found out that her husband divorced her without her knowledge, without paying a dime in support and all efforts to locate him have been futile," there are countless such cases, rues Peshwaria.
Peshwaria firmly believes that it's important to tell these stories, where women are not even allowed to make a single call to their parents, live in complete isolation, depression and have really no home to go back to.