Campaigning mum traces long lost sister

Mar 20 2011 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

A MUM has told of her tearful reunion with her long-lost sister, 29 years after she was disowned by the rest of her family.

Jasvinder Sanghera was 16 when she fled her home in Derby and came to Newcastle to escape being sent to India to marry a much older man she had only ever seen in a photograph.

After refusing to marry, her mother told her she was “dead in her eyes” and that she had dishonoured her family.

Now 46, Jasvinder’s parents have both passed away and she runs Karma Nirvana, a charity dedicated to helping young British women escape forced marriage.

She has always remained determined to be reconciled with her family. Now a special documentary will show how she finally tracked down Bugenol, the half-sister she was always forbidden from meeting.

She said: “I was so overwhelmed I broke into tears. I just wanted to keep on touching her and she kept saying ‘why are you crying? I am here, I am your sister’”.

“The feeling is so difficult to describe because it’s all consuming. It’s the best feeling I have ever had in my entire life.

“I have never really got over being disowned and I have never seen my family for 29 years.

“I don’t understand whose honour they were trying to preserve because it has nothing to do with the people here in India that I have met.”

The TV crew journeys to India with the mum-of-three, who only has an old photograph of her sister and the name of her father’s village to go on.

When she arrived in her father’s village however, an aunt astonishingly dashed her hopes by saying her sister died six years ago – yet she was far from convinced.

When she went to another village locals revealed her sister is alive and well . . . and when she finally arrives at Bugenol’s house the cameras were there to capture the tear-jerking moment when they are finally united.

She said: “I asked her if she thought I had shamed the family and she said no, not at all, just ignore them.”

V Shame Travels is on BBC One North East and Cumbria on Friday, March 25, at 7.30pm.