Dowry abuse is when someone uses coercion, threats, physical violence or emotional or financial abuse to demand or receive a dowry — money or property given to the groom by his bride or her family before or after a marriage.
A parliamentary inquiry is currently looking into the practice of dowry and the potential rate of dowry abuse in Australia.
"When I got married, my husband and his family was not given a dowry as my parents were poor," one Sri Lankan-Australian woman wrote in her submission to the inquiry.
"He would often blackmail me threatening to leave me and divorce me if his demands were not met.
"He would often state that 'you as a divorced woman will lose societal respect' and I always complied with his demands and turned a blind eye for any of his violent behaviour towards me and the children due to fear of being divorced."
The woman said her husband turned her "into a slave" and demanded all her income, which was five times more than his as she worked as a civil engineer.
She asked the committee to recognise that South Asian migrant women on partner visas are "highly vulnerable to economical abuse by their partners" via "demands for dowry money".
The inquiry is trying to figure out how common the practice of dowry is in Australia and whether it is in conflict with a national commitment to "gender equality and human rights". It is also trying to establish how many reports there have been of dowry abuse, "including potential links to family violence, pretext for arranged marriage, forced marriage, modern day slavery, financial abuse, domestic servitude, murder, and other crimes".
Melbourne psychiatrist Manjula O'Connor works in culturally diverse communities and claims 40% of the 180 cases of family violence in Indian and South Asian communities she has worked on in the past three years involved "dowry related extortion".
"The young women and their parents have been hoodwinked by society into continuing the practice of dowry believing that it is their duty to give and the grooms have been groomed to believe that they are entitled to receive the bride’s family wealth," O'Connor wrote in her submission to the inquiry.
Parents unwilling to give dowry were condemned as "too mean" and "too poor".
"The brides have internalised this societal construct," she wrote.
Manjulia, who chairs the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists' family violence psychiatry network, wrote in her submission about some of the women she had worked with.
One Indian woman she calls Poonam presented at the clinic highly distressed and "wishing to die". She had married an Australian-Indian man in 2017 after her parents ordered that she move from Dubai, where she was "happy" working as a receptionist, home to India for the wedding.
"His family had made an offer of marriage to her father," O'Connor said. "She was reluctant but gave in as her father threatened to disown her."
Poonam's husband moved to Australia and she stayed in India at his parents' house waiting for a partner visa.
"She said she was humiliated by her mother-in-law who started to complain about ‘lack of dowry’," O'Connor wrote, adding that Poonam's parents made clear they had nothing to offer in dowry.
The practice of dowry has been illegal in India since 1961 but the nation's crime records show that in 2015, as many as 7,634 women died in the country due to dowry harassment.
Her husband then asked for $6,000 in cash from her parents to pay for her partner visa and tickets to Australia, which they could not afford, so she came to Australia on a tourist visa.
"[Poonam] says it was all a plan to get her here on tourist visa so that he could reject her
easily if he was dissatisfied, without any consequences for him," O'Connor wrote.
Poonam arrived in Australia in March and six months later said she was kicked out of her home for not having enough money for a partner visa.
"She reported feeling acutely suicidal as she was made homeless by her husband," O'Connor wrote, providing details of Poonam's hospital visits.
Poonam is currently on a tourist visa so is ineligible for Centrelink payments or Medicare.
"She is unemployed and has no source of income," O'Connor wrote. "[She has] thoughts of feeling cheated and betrayed, humiliated, subjected to physical violence, emotional abuse, sexual abuse."
Poonam is medicated for stress and anxiety, has "severe insomnia", and is currently in a safe house.
O'Connor said her figures show there has been a slow decrease in demand for her services in this area, which she believes is because of the public process leading up to the eventual criminalisation of dowry abuse last month in Victoria.
The inquiry is also looking at the adequacy of the family law system, including how divorce and property settlement proceedings deal with dowry and dowry abuse, and whether Australia's migration law system and its visa requirements fuel the phenomenon.
O'Connor wrote in her submission about another woman, who she called Neema.
Neema was married at an "elaborate" arranged marriage ceremony in 2016, paid for by her parents, who also bought her mother-in-law diamond jewellery and gold watches, and bangles for her sister-in-law and brother-in-law.
"After the marriage her husband started to demand her father pay for their honeymoon to Paris," O'Connor wrote. "After marriage she relocated to his parents’ home as per the Indian custom and he took her card and withdrew roughly $2,000 of her account."
In March 2016 Neema arrived in Australia on a tourist visa. O'Connor said her husband socially isolated her, forcing her to stay home.
"He would not allow her to apply for jobs," she said. "She became sick very often, for three months he refused to take her to a GP."
O'Connor said the husband smashed an iron gate on Neema's foot after she spent $30 on groceries.
"Her gums were bleeding, possibly due to an inadequate diet."
Neema went to a wedding in India and when she came back to Australia, her husband refused to let her back into the house.
"Her parents were present in the interview with her," O'Connor wrote. "They were extremely distressed."
The committee on the parliamentary inquiry is due to report in December.