Forced marriage as a form of family violence in Victoria

Status: Complete
Project Team: Dr Shih Joo Tan and Dr Laura Vidal (Canberra University)
Funder: Victorian Higher Education State Investment Fund (VHESIF)

Synopsis

Victoria is the only state in Australia recognising forced marriage as a legal form of family violence. Since 2013, forced marriage has been understood and responded to in Australia as a form of human trafficking and a slavery-like practice and is a Commonwealth criminal offence, and it is also under consideration as a legal form of family violence in the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and their Children (2022-2032).

Despite these commitments and developments, little is known about the impact of legally recognising forced marriage as family violence in Victoria, and the implications for family violence and other responses by practitioners and frontline service providers, the interaction between the state- and federal-based criminal justice and service response, and the success of Victorian services meeting the needs of persons coming forward to seek assistance and intervention for potential, threatened or formalised forced marriage/s.

This project contributes to:

  1. Ongoing national commitments to ending violence against women, and

  2. The ongoing commitment to building a robust evidence base on modern slavery and human trafficking practices, under the National Action Plan to Combat Modern Slavery (2020-2025).

Executive summary

This report details the consistent support for the inclusion of forced marriage as family violence and the recognition that this is a welcome opportunity to expand service supports for persons affected by forced marriage. However, our findings also call to attention the urgent need to review:

  1. The suitability of current family violence support services in meeting the varied needs of the different groups of persons affected by forced marriage and

  2. The strong association of forced marriage with CALD communities reflected in current risk assessment processes.

The findings in this report detail the importance of undertaking careful and considered research and review to ensure that the intention of recognising forced marriage as a statutory example of family violence is fully realised. In particular, that it results in women (and men) impacted by forced marriage accessing appropriate, tailored services that can support their safety.

Key findings

Participants in the research expressed consistent support for the inclusion of forced marriage as a statutory example of family violence within the Family Violence Protection Act (2018) (Vic), in particular, the opportunity to increase identification of persons at risk and access to pathways for engaging communities and offering support. Despite the recognition of these opportunities, there were also concerns around jurisdictional challenges, as the Commonwealth framework of human trafficking framework remains the primary mechanism for responses.

  • Family violence practitioners and frontline service providers across Victoria see forced marriage as a form of family violence given:

    • It is a form of interpersonal violence occurring as a process within a familial setting and/or because family are involved in facilitating the unwanted marriage

    • It is not just about the absence of consent or coercion into marriage or that marriage is the only site of harm. Coercive pressures to marry are a dynamic process shaped and precipitated by multiple factors—including familial, structural and social-cultural contexts in which people navigate and negotiate across their life.

    Family violence practitioners maintain that including forced marriage within responses to human trafficking are important because of the overseas dimensions involved in the practice: particularly in situations where there is international travel or exit trafficking (defined as coercing, forcing or threating another person to leave Australia against their will). However, this framework presents particular operational challenges, including:

    • That responses are located within a criminal justice framework with mandatory contract with law enforcement, thereby limiting opportunities for support and increasing reluctance for victim-survivors to disclose given the risk this may present to their family members.

  • Identification of forced marriage and requisite support needs are focused on persons who are not yet forced into marriage but are facing imminent or immediate risk. This highlighted specific implications:

    • Focus is placed on the entry point into marriages and preventing its occurrence – this is critical, however, as an approach it falls short of recognising exiting a forced marriage

    • Discourse and support in the exit of a forced marriage is framed as intimate partner violence and addressed entirely separately from forced marriage – which has been argued by the participants in this research, and elsewhere, to have unique dynamics requiring specialisation and nuanced responses.

  • Forced marriage was specifically associated with CALD, and newly-arrived migrant communities which is in conflict with assertions also made by participants that forced marriage can and does happen to persons irrespective of their ethnicity, religion, age or nationality.

    This association has specific implications, including:

    • Calling into focus the need for closer attention within forced marriage and family violence response sectors to understand the broad and diverse ways in which forced marriage may occur: including recognition of the interplay with gender, poverty, sexuality and immigration policies – rather than only religion, ethnicity and/or culture

    • Initiatives particularly targeted around prevention and education are directed toward contexts where there are higher numbers of CALD communities or newly-arrived migrants which limits focus on the broader contexts in which forced marriage may occur.

Research Outputs

Key contact:
Shih Joo Tan

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