Soon after the Victorian government passed an anti-dowry legislation in August 2018, citing it as a form of family violence, a Senate Inquiry chaired by Louise Pratt was tasked to investigate the extent of dowry abuse in Australia.
Simultaneously, SBS Punjabi built on many months research and began interviewing both male and female victims of dowry abuse in Australia, also reaching out to social workers, community leaders, politicians, lawyers and experts both in India and Australia.
More cases of violence are being reported from the fast-growing Indian Australian population than ever before. Unfortunately, such reporting often tends to shift the blame on cultural practices like arranged marriage, joint family system, dowry and more. SBS Punjabi's multi-award winning documentary ‘The Enemy Within’ looked into this question extensively, and emphasised that Indian culture isn’t a fault line, it doesn’t condone violence, and should never be used as an excuse to condone violence against women and children.
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'The Enemy Within' (English Version)
India has now become the leading source country of migration to Australia.
Apart from an annual intake of 160,000 new skilled migrants into Australia (most of whom are from India), there are roughly 800,000 international students in the country, with a large proportion of them being Indian. A vast majority of the Indian origin arrivals (whether temporary visa holders, international students or new skilled migrants) tend to be single males, and usually when it’s time to start a family, they go back home to India to get married. The new bride tends to join her husband in Australia thereafter, and soon has to learn to adjust into a new country, new lifestyle and new family dynamic. For a majority of couples, including those who found their spouse through a traditional arranged marriage, the arrangements seem to work well.
Complications arise in young families of Indian origin largely due to settlement issues – finding a house and a job, financial pressure of taking care of the needs of a young family in Australia as well as the family back home in India, lack of support from extended families, tendency of males to dominate and adherence to traditional gender roles. Sometimes, the cultural practice of dowry maybe used as an excuse for violence.
But as this SBS Punjabi investigation revealed, when money matters take precedence, both marriage and divorce come with hefty price tags. The bride's family bears the brunt of unreasonable dowry demands at time of marriage, whilst the groom's family seems to face extortion and blackmail at the time of divorce. Unfortunately, such victims abound in Australia.
Through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, we learnt from the Department of Home Affairs that the highest number of protection visas were granted to Indian nationals.
This made the SBS Punjabi investigation into the practice and abuse of dowry in Australia even more pertinent, resulting in the eye-opening audio and online feature 'The price of marriage and divorce.'
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The Price of Marriage and Divorce
We heard from women whose families had paid cash and expensive gifts amounting to over $40,000 at the time of marriage, for the "privilege" of marrying a groom based in Australia. They continued to face further demands after marriage, resulting in wide-ranging abuse if the demands weren't met.
We also unearthed a systematic pattern of abuse and extortion faced by male victims of dowry, who faced an almost impossible choice at the time of divorce - either they pay upwards of $40,000 to settle things discretely, or face false dowry charges in India, with the prospect of their entire family being jailed or harassed for years.
For the first time, this phenomenon of male victims of dowry was exposed in 'The Dowry Trap." We revealed how parallel court proceedings in marital dispute resolution are landing up in two jurisdictions – Australian and Indian courts, leading to extortion, blackmail, fake cases, arrest and even child abduction. Dozens of male victims shared how 'fake dowry charges' were used to torment them and to extort large sums of money from them, as well as their families.
A noted Indian High Court lawyer told SBS Punjabi that even though anti-dowry legislation was enacted in India decades ago, it hasn't halted the cultural practice in the country. If anything, the law is misused with malicious intent, victimising men and their entire families. According to an estimate, over 80 per cent of 'dowry cases' in India end in acquittal, after years of hearings and courtroom appearances.
Current Australian family violence provisions only provide assistance based on visa status of the victim. In the case of case of temporary visa holders like international students, spouses of students and people on working visas – they receive absolutely no governmental assistance, with community initiatives helping out in a few cases. These stories are left largely unnoticed and untold, but SBS Punjabi kept shining a light on such cases as part of our investigation, bringing many individual stories to the fore.
These issues were also raised during the public hearings held for the Senate inquiry in Australia. It came forth with its findings in February 2019, with the primary recommendation being, 'Australia should not criminalise dowry', meaning an anti-dowry legislation was not required in Australia. It accepted that there is rampant ‘abuse’ of the Indian dowry legislation, which also adversely impacts many Australians (mostly male). And it recommended a new visa category to protect female temporary migrants, who are not currently covered by Australian family law provisions. SBS Punjabi's effort in highlighting all of the above issues were commended by Senator Louise Pratt, the Chair of the Senate Inquiry into dowry abuse in Australia, who said, "The reporting that SBS has done has been really critical in informing the communities that are affected by this and that really helped people come forward to participate in the inquiry to tell their stories, because for far too long people have suffered in silence on this issue. So the visibility SBS has been giving to the issue has really helped our parliamentary inquiry.”
See the links below to the numerous other stories covered by SBS Punjabi during and prior to this investigation into dowry abuse in Australia, giving a voice to both female and male victims of such abuse.
27 February 2019
“Family violence, dowry and ‘fake cases’ in Australia’s Indian community”
24 December 2018
“What about men? Asks four-time Kiwi-Indian MP Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi”
14, December, 2018
Of dowry, divorce and desertion: women victims of dowry abuse speak out
23 January 2019
“Senate inquiry into dowry must also focus on visa issues”
December 2019
"Dowry: the big issue that has the Indian community divided'
16 January 2019
“Australia must learn from India’s mistakes, says mens’ rights activist”
21 December 2018
“What women activists think about Australia’s dowry problem”
20 February 2019
“I paid $40,000 to marry a woman with an Australian student visa”
27 February 2019
English language qualifications used as bargain for dowry, say women's group
14 December, 2018
"Dowry is a growing problem in Australia; it's time we face it"
17 April 2019
'I just want my son back in Australia,' says mother
13 May 2019
“Good men don’t murder: DV campaigner criticises media portrayal of killers”
15 August 2019
'I only had $20 in my pocket when I left my abusive husband'
Earlier
19 December 2017, updated 28 August 2018
“Brothers Manpreet and Pawandeep finally back in Australia after 10-month ordeal”
22 August 2018
“It’s decided, we must kill her”
5 June, 2018
Online dowry calculator sparks controversy in India
30 May 2018, updated 27 February 2019
“I married my rapist”
