Countries: Australia
Variables: ATDW-PRACTICE-1

"'The Family Law Act (1975) does not enable victims of dowry abuse to recover the dowry provided by the victim or her family in the event of divorce proceedings'" (para 13). "Sydney woman Sita*, who has been supported by Randhawa’s organisation, said her whole family remained distressed by the dowry abuse she had experienced. She was betrothed in her teens and her fiance came to Australia to marry her, at which time her family was required to pay $20,000 for her sister-in-law’s wedding and pay for improvements to her in-laws’ family home. Sita had to give him gold worth $2500. 'He started openly cheating on me when I was six...more

Countries: Australia
Variables: NGOFW-DATA-1

"Ela Stewart, of InTouch Multicultural Service Against Family Violence, said the organisation had supported clients whose family members were threatened with violence if money was not handed over" (para 17).

Countries: Australia
Variables: MISA-PRACTICE-1

"Lead researcher Tinashe Dune treats victims of dowry abuse as a clinical psychologist and said the women often have complex post-traumatic stress disorders due to long-term, entrenched forms of abuse. But it often flies under the radar, as Victoria is the only state that has made dowry abuse a family violence offence" (para 5). "Melbourne psychiatrist Professor Manjula O’Connor said she had treated hundreds of women suffering serious mental health issues after being victims of dowry abuse in Australia. In one recent case, a woman had been sent back to India by her husband and told to have an abortion after he learnt she was pregnant. He demanded a large...more

Countries: Australia
Variables: MARR-PRACTICE-5

"Gold, cash, property, cars and women’s salaries are being demanded by the families of some grooms in the South Asian-Australian community, despite dowries being banned in India. Demands for gifts 'were continuous and abusive, including instances of sexual extortion', research on Australia’s community of Indian and South Asian people has found. The median cost of weddings was between $12,000 and $80,000, and the value of the dowry paid by the victims was between $42,000 and $195,000. This was in addition to tuition fees and visa processing fees paid by the women, who often came to Australia from India and lacked access to legal redress if, for example, sponsorship of their...more

Countries: Australia
Variables: LRW-PRACTICE-1

"Gold, cash, property, cars and women’s salaries are being demanded by the families of some grooms in the South Asian-Australian community, despite dowries being banned in India. Demands for gifts 'were continuous and abusive, including instances of sexual extortion', research on Australia’s community of Indian and South Asian people has found" (para 1-2). "A 2018 Senate inquiry into dowry abuse heard it had resulted in violence, extortion and a spate of suicides and murders" (para 19).

Countries: Australia
Variables: AOM-PRACTICE-1

"Sydney woman Sita*, who has been supported by Randhawa’s organisation, said her whole family remained distressed by the dowry abuse she had experienced. She was betrothed in her teens and her fiance came to Australia to marry her" (para 20-21).

Countries: Australia
Variables: SEGI-PRACTICE-1

"[South Australia] Best MP Connie Bonaros described stealthing as a 'repugnant and disgusting act of betrayal', and said her private member's bill would ensure it was dealt with appropriately by police and the courts. 'It should have been criminalised years ago,' Ms Bonaros said in a statement. 'Such grotesque acts of indecency deserve to be treated in the same manner as rape and a crime punishable by terms of imprisonment'... Ms Bonaros said it was 'more common than most people believe'. 'Under the new legislation, the removal of a condom during sex without the consent of the other person will now be a crime punishable by up to life imprisonment,'...more

Countries: Australia
Variables: LRW-LAW-2

"Non-consensually removing a condom during sex — an act known as 'stealthing' — is set to be criminalised in South Australia, with those found guilty facing penalties of up to life imprisonment...'[This bill will] explicitly make sure that stealthing is covered by our criminal law and people that engage in it can be charged with sexual offences,' [Attorney-General Kyam Maher] said" (1, 11).

Countries: Australia
Variables: LRW-DATA-1

"Non-consensually removing a condom during sex — an act known as 'stealthing' — is set to be criminalised in South Australia, with those found guilty facing penalties of up to life imprisonment. A bill to outlaw the practice, reportedly committed against one in three women, yesterday passed SA parliament's upper house, and is now set to pass the lower house with government support... A Monash University study in 2018 found that, of more than 2,000 people surveyed, one in three women, and one in five men who have sex with men, had been victims of stealthing. Ms Bonaros said it was 'more common than most people believe' " (1-2, 6-7).more

Countries: Australia
Variables: WAM-PRACTICE-1

"A mum-of-five who used donor sperm to have her children is worried about 'accidental incest' after discovering her kids have at least 43 half-siblings...Her story will air on Tuesday night's episode of SBS's 'Inconceivable: The Secret Business of Breeding Humans'. The one-hour documentary, based on journalist Sarah Dingle's search for her biological father, reveals the 'deeply unethical and pathologically secretive business' of the fertility industry in Australia" (1, 31-32).

Countries: Australia
Variables: ACR-PRACTICE-1

"A mum-of-five who used donor sperm to have her children is worried about 'accidental incest' after discovering her kids have at least 43 half-siblings. Shannon Ashton and her partner first visited the Queensland Fertility Group in 2002 for specialist help after discovering she had polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). The same-sex couple decided to use an anonymous sperm donor, registered with the Queensland clinic, to try and have a baby. A year later were blessed with a boy named Zac. The couple decided on Donor 188, described as a 'typical Aussie, sporty bloke' on the database, and used his sperm again to conceive their next four children, most recently welcoming a...more

Countries: Australia
Variables: ACR-DATA-1

"A mum-of-five who used donor sperm to have her children is worried about 'accidental incest' after discovering her kids have at least 43 half-siblings. Shannon Ashton and her partner first visited the Queensland Fertility Group in 2002 for specialist help after discovering she had polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). The same-sex couple decided to use an anonymous sperm donor, registered with the Queensland clinic, to try and have a baby...Ms Ashton emailed the clinic asking for information on the number of children conceived from Donor 188. Ms Ashton said the clinic replied with a list of 43 other children, categorised only by year and gender. 'We emailed the clinic and it...more

Countries: Australia
Variables: SEGI-PRACTICE-1

“There are community attitudes that have this idea of what we call sex symmetry; this idea women and men perpetrate domestic, family and sexual violence at similar or equal rates,’ says Chay Brown, research and partnerships manager at The Equality Institute. She says it's an ‘uncomfortable truth’ that men are ‘overwhelmingly responsible’ for most intimate partner violence. ‘And because we live in a male-dominated society in terms of leadership and power structures … people don't want to have that kind of reflection.’ But preventing domestic violence benefits everyone. Violence towards male victim-survivors is also overwhelmingly perpetrated by other men…ABC Everyday is publishing this story to complement our domestic violence reporting...more

Countries: Australia
Variables: MURDER-PRACTICE-2, MURDER-DATA-2

“[C]lose to half of all female domestic and family violence related deaths in Queensland from 2015 to 2017 were of women who had previously been identified as a respondent to a domestic violence order. Failure to appropriately identify the primary domestic abuser disproportionately impacts First Nations women, who are also more likely to experience structural racism in the criminal legal system. ‘The deceased person had been recorded as both a respondent and an aggrieved party in domestic violence orders in nearly all of the domestic and family violence related deaths of Aboriginal people,’ The State of Knowledge Report on Violence Perpetration shows” (25-27). “Between 2010 and 2014 there were 152...more

Countries: Australia
Variables: DV-PRACTICE-1

“Misidentification — when a domestic violence victim is incorrectly named as the respondent (person reported to be the perpetrator) on an intervention order, or charged with criminal offences — is alarmingly common. For example, close to half of all female domestic and family violence related deaths in Queensland from 2015 to 2017 were of women who had previously been identified as a respondent to a domestic violence order. Failure to appropriately identify the primary domestic abuser disproportionately impacts First Nations women, who are also more likely to experience structural racism in the criminal legal system” (24-26).