Australia’s response to preventing forced marriage should begin with listening to the needs of young women.
In the wake of a story recently aired on 60 Minutes Australia focused on forced marriage, this post by Laura Vidal and Marie Segrave offers nuanced commentary about Australia’s response to the issue and the policy focus moving forward. Laura is a lecturer in social work at the University of Canberra and Marie is a Professor of Criminology at the University of Melbourne.
On Sunday 30 June 2024, 60 minutes ran a story focused on forced marriage: specifically the conviction of Ruqia Haidari’s mother, Sakina Muhammad Jan for coercing her daughter into marrying Perth man Mohammad Ali Halimi. To most, forced marriage is not an issue that comes to mind when thinking about gendered violence. The focus of Australia’s response to violence against women and children does not readily identify this issue. It is however part of Australia’s commitment to women’s safety under the National Plan to End Violence Against Women 2022-2032 and the National Plan to Combat Modern Slavery 2020-2025.
Ruqia’s experience of forced marriage brings a less-recognised form of gendered violence into focus. What has brought attention to this case is that following her marriage, Ruqia was murdered by her husband. This shifted the focus onto the question of why this marriage went ahead. The AFP had been in contact with Ruqia before her marriage. While across Australia the AFP are in contact with many women (and, a smaller number of men) in a similar situation to Ruqia, her case brought specific focus and questions because of her death.
In our research it is clear that the evidence-based is limited, in a complex and important space. The prosecutorial outcome of Ruqia’s case is not one which can be held up as a measure of success about Australia’s response to the issue – given the most persistent need that must be acknowledged and met is that of young women’s desire to retain relationships with their family. Shifting our attention to what young women say they want and need to achieve safety must become the starting point of assessing safety and designing a response in this context.
At the time Ruqia was being coerced into marriage, the pathway to support was via the AFP and limited those who are willing to disclose their situation to police only. Research shows that many women who seek assistance do not wish to have criminal charges laid against their family members. This is attributed to reasons ranging from fear of repercussions, love for their family, and concern that they will be forever ostracised from their family and community. For this reason, it is important to be clear that Ruqia’s case is an outlier: the prosecution could proceed because the young woman involved was no longer alive, and any fears she may have articulated or held about the consequences of police involvement for her family and herself, no longer influenced the process.
Ruqia’s case is an important litmus test for Australia. Media coverage of Ruqia’s case including the 60 Minutes story has provided a platform for the government to reassert that Australia’s response to forced marriage is both working and a priority for ongoing investment.
The conviction of Sakina Muhammad Jan, however, highlights that the identification of one single offender does not reflect the reality of how marriage is negotiated in the lives of women and their families across various social, economic, and cultural structures. Just as young women feel the pressure to acquiesce to familial and community expectations, so too do family members. This includes, but is not limited to mothers, who are similarly under significant pressure to ensure that their daughters ‘marry well’. The intergenerational nature of forced marriage presents an additional layer of complexity when responding to this issue through the blunt instrument of the law that is effectively ignored when a single person is found solely responsible for coercion in the context of marriage.
Until very recently the singular focus on forced marriage was within the context of modern slavery. In 2013 forced marriage was criminalised as a ‘slavery-like practice’ under Commonwealth trafficking and slavery legislation. While it is consistently the most commonly referred issue to the Australian Federal Police team responsible for all slavery and trafficking offences, this conviction in 2024 is the first prosecution in over a decade of the offence being in place. We don’t see this as a failure to prosecute, but as evidence in part that the reliance on criminal justice interventions is totally at odds with the reality of this issue.
This comes at a time when Australian states and territories are beginning to recognise forced marriage as a statutory example of domestic and family violence and increasingly there is a focus on the role of the domestic and family violence sector to respond. This is a concern for two reasons. Firstly, the sector is chronically overwhelmed and unable to meet demands. Secondly, the inclusion of forced marriage without recognising the complexity of these cases and the dedicated resourcing required to best support those at risk creates an environment where the response will likely fall short of what young women want and need, and ultimately preventing forced marriage. Research from Victoria has highlighted that these inclusions in state legislation are not automatically linked to better responsiveness to those seeking support for forced marriage.
Nationally there have been some shifts in recognising that the criminal justice mechanisms are a blunt instrument in the context of forced marriage. The 2023 introduction of an alternative referral pathway onto the Support for Trafficked People Program (STPP) (commencing 8 July 2024) and the funding of a Forced Marriage Specialist Support Program (commencing 2 January 2025) are welcome moves. This follows a decade of advocacy led primarily by service providers who were observing significant gaps in being able to secure safety for people affected by forced marriage as they were being asked to make an impossible choice: report their family members, typically their parents, to police or not gain access to support.
The promise of these moves – in principle – include pathways of support which not only disconnect them from the criminal justice system but attempt to avoid excluding and vilifying families: this is critical because research has shown this is one of the most desired pathways of support for people who are at risk of or impacted by forced marriage.
Where does this leave us? We return to the primary concern that while there are changes afoot, overwhelming there is a disconnect between commitments to forced marriage. There remains no significant review of the connections between specialised federal responses to forced marriage, state and territory-level child protection responses and domestic and family violence systems. Broad commitments can suggest these systems are working in concert: however the practical reality of this is more uncertain with great variability in understanding of the issues, the responsibility of different agencies and services to respond, and an absence of clarity about what safety looks like for those involved.
We must avoid another decade of poorly fit solutions that at best do not meet the needs of those seeking support, and at worst do not prevent forced marriages from occurring. We must also reconcile that Ruqia’s death was preventable, and across Australia many more people are in forced marriages that fall into obscurity.
About the authors:
Laura Vidal is a lecturer in social work at the University of Canberra. Marie Segrave is a Professor of Criminology at the University of Melbourne.