Frank
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In a submission to the Senate inquiry, Gurdip Aurora, president of the Australia India Society of Victoria, echoed Srinivasan’s sentiments. “I have been in Australia since 1972,” he wrote. “Usually most cases of dowry abuse and domestic violence have occurred amongst Indian couples who have migrated in the past few years and who were married in India. It is more prevalent amongst the international students waiting for their visa applications to be processed.
“Laws of any kind are unnecessary as the giving and taking of dowry does not exist within the Indian community and their children who are Australian citizens and permanent residents.”
On any given afternoon in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, a small group of Indian women gather for “chai and chat”. On the face of it, they could be a mother’s group, a book club or any group of friends catching up, but the absence of laughter is a telltale sign of the heartbreaking bond they share. Prisha*, 36, who arrived in Australia after an arranged marriage in Bangalore, India five years ago, followed a path chillingly similar to that of Sargun Ragi. She considers herself one of the lucky ones. The highly credentialled engineer was a rising star in one of India’s biggest aviation firms, leading a team of engineers on a complex international project, when one afternoon her parents phoned her office and instructed her to pack up her desk and come home immediately — she was engaged to be married. Her fiance Ayush* had been living in Australia and was coming home to collect the bride he’d never met. They would live in Australia after the wedding, she was told.
“It was a bit gut-wrenching,” says Prisha. “I knew it [the arranged marriage] was coming sooner or later and I was sort of excited to meet my husband but I really liked my life and my job.”
Prisha met her fiance at their engagement party. During the celebrations he told her the dowry her family had offered wasn’t enough, and that they’d need to provide a more substantial “gift”. Prisha’s family, who were market gardeners, had offered their life savings — a car, gold, a silver dinner set, whitegoods and $50,000 in cash to ensure their daughter’s bright future. Ayush demanded double.
On the day of their marriage, when it became clear no more dowry was available, Ayush verbally abused Prisha, telling her she was ugly and not good enough for him. He left after the wedding ceremony and returned to Australia. In the meantime, as is customary, she was forced to live with his family and was not allowed to work or leave their compound while she waited for her visa. She became the family servant. “My mother-in-law controlled my life. The irony is, they wanted more and more money from my parents and yet my salary [before I was married] was double what they could have given or what he earned, but I wasn’t allowed to work.”
The situation worsened when Prisha arrived in Melbourne. Ayush was physically and psychologically abusive. He forced her to have sex and often took a knife to his throat in front of her. “It was a nightmare, and I wanted to leave but I couldn’t. He threatened to kill me and himself if I left because of the shame it would bring to our families. And yet he was sleeping with other women the whole time. In our custom, when you marry, it’s for life. My family would have suffered great embarrassment if I’d left.”
When she fell pregnant Ayush fled interstate, leaving Prisha alone to raise their child. She receives no support from him and although she is desperate to return home to India, he placed a flight ban on their child. “It’s his way of controlling me forever,” she says. “I will not leave without my baby, so I’m stuck.”
Prisha has been battling depression and anxiety and she is not alone; stories of abuse and intimidation echo around the coffee table, and Prisha knows of at least seven other women in a similar situation. Dr O’Connor has been helping these women rebuild. “In Indian culture, from the minute a girl is engaged, she belongs to that family,” she explains. “So, imagine then she belongs to a family who beats her up. She thought she was entering a wonderful marriage but she’s being beaten up and she has no place to turn. Divorce isn’t an option and her family have given every dollar they have for her dowry. They can’t afford a second marriage for her. Her life, and her family’s, has been ruined.”
O’Connor arrived in Australia when she was 21 and fell in love with an Australian man. On her wedding day she received some gifts of gold jewellery and a collection of precious saris from her family, which she still treasures today. There was no dowry given or taken. When one of her daughters married recently, she gave her a small amount of money to put towards a house deposit. “I gave that to her because I wanted to, not because I felt obliged under tradition.”
Her fight against dowry abuse has become her life’s work and she is relieved to be making progress. However, speaking out has come at a cost. Some sectors of the Indian community have denounced her efforts, claiming she is “bringing their culture into disrepute”, she says.
“The backlash against me personally is huge,” O’Connor explains. “People in the Indian community do not like me speaking up — they say I’m focusing on the minority, not the majority — but the reason I keep going is because I see women coming into my clinic every day who’ve been abused. One woman abused is too many.”
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