There is severe shortage of women among the socially upper castes like Jats, Rors, Ahirs, Yadavs, and Brahmins, while economically better offs among them can easily find a local bride within their caste, the disadvantaged men among them ""who are underemployed, poor, those who have little land, suffer from some deformity, are less educated or are old are the ones who most often seek cross-region brides"". This phenomenon has now spread to lower castes and Muslim communities. In India female foeticide, female infanticide and deliberate neglect of female children have resulted in the sex ratio imbalance in the country. Preference for sons stems from centuries old patriarchal traditions which see women as financial burdens where property is passed down the male lineage and dowry expenses are expected to be paid by the bride’s family to the groom upon marriage. Despite the prevalence of the dowry system across all castes and regions in India, men who are unable to find brides due to certain socioeconomic disadvantage are willing to pay for a bride from an improvised background. Poverty in the improvised states makes parents vulnerable to sell their daughters for money, some of whom even believe that their daughter is being married to a richer man in a faraway place, are unaware that their daughters are being purchased by the middlemen for reselling in the destination states for a profit. Due to the dowry system in India, the bride's family gives durable goods, cash, and real or movable property to the bridegroom, his parents, or his relatives as a condition of the marriage, stemming from India's skewed inheritance laws, and the Hindu Succession Act needed to be amended to stop the routine disinheritance of daughters. The dowry system can put great financial burden on the bride's family.. Poor families who are unable to afford paying dowry find it hard to get their daughters married, and by selling the daughter they not only avoid paying dowry but also make some money, while disadvantaged men get the bride, it works for both the seller and buyer. The Constitution of India prohibits all forms of trafficking under Article 23(1) which states that "Traffic in human beings and begar [sic] and other similar forms of forced labour are prohibited and any contravention of this provision shall be an offence punishable in accordance with the law." However, India is yet to implement comprehensive laws prohibiting the practice of bride trafficking. Despite the explicit references to trafficking in the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act 1956, it pertains only to commercial sexual activities in brothels and public places.