Since 2015, more than 11,000 women married to Indians abroad have approached India’s foreign missions with complaints of domestic crises. Many cases involve allegations of fraud and abuse. But in most instances, overseas officials are able to do only so much to help.

Violence against women is legitimized by social norms, beliefs and institutions.

It was the tragic death by suicide that has laid bare the daily trauma of the three sisters from a landless household married to an affluent family with demands for dowry from impoverished parents.

The report highlighted the alarming figures and information on child sexual abuse in India. Social taboo and stigma attached to child sexual abuse and lack of faith in the system’s ability to respond and deliver emerged as key factors that kept children away from reporting abuse.