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.

Polygyny or the practice of having more than one wife is legal in India only for Muslims, but National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data shows it is almost as prevalent in other communities, though on the decline in all.