Gendered Oppression of Muslim Women in Transactional Cross-border Marriages in Kerala

This study examines broker-mediated, commercially arranged cross-border marriages involving Muslim women from economically marginalised communities in Kerala. Based on in-depth interviews with 36 women—18 in inter-state marriages (primarily with men from Mysore and Karnataka) and 18 in international marriages involving Arab countries and the Maldives—the article explores how gender, poverty, language, religion and geographic displacement intersect to produce structured vulnerability within marriage. Unlike elite or self-initiated transnational unions, these marriages are characterised by limited premarital familiarity, constrained consent-building and intensive broker mediation, where marriage is negotiated as an economic transaction. The findings show how women are relocated into unfamiliar cultural and linguistic environments that restrict autonomy and increase dependence on husbands, in-laws and intermediaries. By foregrounding survivor narratives, the study argues that these marriages function less as pathways to mobility and more as sites of gendered control and exploitation. Drawing on biopolitics, gender justice and human rights frameworks, the study contributes to debates on intimate partner violence, reproductive justice and the political economy of cross-border marriage markets, while avoiding generalisations across all forms of cross-border marriage.