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DOWRY abuse, the act of extorting money and gifts from a South Asian bride’s family beyond the customary wedding gifts, is a form of coercive control and can lead to domestic violence, emotional and financial abuse, and even murder.
With around a third of South Asian women in Australia reporting either having experienced dowry abuse or knowing someone who has, awareness of the practice is growing. In 2019, Victoria amended their Family Violence Protection Act 2008 to include dowry abuse, following the murder of Deepshikha Godara at the hands of her husband.
Dr Manjula O’Connor, a consultant psychiatrist and Honorary Clinical Associate Professor in the University of Melbourne’s Department of Psychiatry, told InSight+ that dowry abuse was an extension of the concept of dowry, in which the South Asian bride’s family is expected to bear the cost of an extravagant wedding, as well as give the groom’s family gifts of cash, gold and other luxuries.
“If you have grown up in a South Asian culture, and you are a male, there is a sense within the family that when the boy grows up, he is going to bring a bride, and she’s going to bring dowry with her,” Dr O’Connor said, in an exclusive podcast.
“And if you’re a born as a girl in that culture, you grow up and your parents grow up with the idea that you’re going to have to save huge amounts of money for this girl to be married off, because marriage is absolutely a seminal moment in a South Asian woman’s life.
“South Asian cultures are generally patriarchal and patrilineal, which means that the bride goes to live with her husband – that’s patriarchal – but that the wealth of the family will be patrilinear. It will go from the father to the son to the grandson.
“In that case, the girls are compensated for by having dowry – that’s the ante-mortem inheritance. In a way it is protecting the daughter’s interests, but there is inherent gender inequality in it as well. Inheritance of a family property could be far more than the dowry would ever get.”
The problem comes, Dr O’Connor said, when the groom and his family demand gifts and money beyond the wedding tradition. Dowry abuse can include the husband seeking to have control over his wife’s income, bank accounts, and mobile phones, as well the wife’s family being forced to give gifts to avoid shaming and humiliation.
Dowry abuse is a red flag for other forms of domestic violence, Dr O’Connor said.
“Dowry abuse doesn’t happen in isolation. It is part of the general scenario of gender inequality, patriarchal dominance, coercive control, abuse of power, from maybe husband to a wife, and even woman to woman from the mother-in-law to daughter-in-law. Even the groom’s sisters can get into it.
“It can become quite pernicious.”
In a Perspective for the MJA, Dr O’Connor and her co-author, Amanda Lee from the Harmony Alliance at the Migration Council Australia, wrote that “legal protection afforded to victims of dowry abuse is currently inadequate”.
“Unfortunately, the current approach across Australia is insufficient and inconsistent,” they wrote.
“As of 2021, only Victoria and Western Australia have included dowry-related abuse in family violence legislation.
“Our clinical observation that the new Victorian laws, accompanied by heightened media reporting and awareness raising, appear to have had a significant impact on the incidence of new dowry abuse cases is suggestive of their merit.”
As with most domestic and intimate partner violence, GPs are often the first contact for women going through it, and the same is true for dowry abuse.
“The most important thing for a GP to look out for is when they see a young woman of a South Asian origin coming in with unexplained injuries and unexplained symptoms,” Dr O’Connor told InSight+.
In the MJA Perspective, O’Connor and Lee wrote about the risk factors and flags for dowry abuse.
“Dowry abuse is associated with serious mental health harm and risk to life, with reports of patients having post-traumatic stress disorder and common mental disorders such as anxiety, depression and suicidality,” they wrote. “Yet silence around dowry abuse acts as a barrier to seeking help.
“Routine interactions with GPs and other health professionals can provide a valuable opportunity to intervene and break the silence.
“Risk factors such as female gender, South Asian background, marital relationship problems, temporary visa status, unexplained illnesses, and mental health presentations should serve as reminders to check for dowry abuse and related signs of family violence.
“It is essential to provide appropriate referral to domestic violence service providers [such as] 1800 RESPECT, or police if life is at risk.
“Culturally responsive counselling services, trauma-informed care, and treatment of associated mental health conditions should be initiated.”
The families of the bride are also victims of abuse, Dr O’Connor told InSight+.
“It’s not just the loss of the daughter’s wedding or the daughter’s health. It’s the shame, the embarrassment, the loss of dowry,” she said.
“I’ve treated so many of the parents who come from India in absolute desperation, and treated them alongside their daughter. Family sessions help them to reconcile with the trauma of what’s happening to their vulnerable daughter.
“I have heard stories of parents in India having heart attacks, suffering strokes, dying as a result of dowry abuse. Because for the parents, for Indian parents, this daughter’s marriage is so important. It’s a societal display of status. The shame that goes with [dowry abuse], that people feel, can be enough to give them a heart attack.”
The AustralAsian Centre for Human Rights and Health, of which Dr O’Connor is Founding Director, is running an anti-dowry abuse campaign, which is striving to have the federal Family Law Act (1975) amended to include dowry abuse.
“What we really want is a uniformity in the laws against dowry abuse in Australia,” Dr O’Connor told InSight+.
“We want laws, federal family law, to include dowry demands, as a cultural expression of financial extortion, so that people become sensitised that the government and the laws are watching.
“We’ve been having regular meetings with the federal Attorney-General’s policy team, and we are due to meet them again this year.
“We are hoping that they have received enough messages from our conversations and the research that we provided them that [dowry abuse] is form of coercive control, and that it will neatly fit into the category of domestic violence.
“Because the custom of dowry is so ubiquitous within the South Asian communities, dowry abuse is often a blind spot, even with the victims themselves. And that’s why the law is necessary.”
National sexual assault support
1800 RESPECT: National sexual assault, domestic family violence counselling service. Operates 24 hours/7 days a week.
Phone: 1800 737 732
Blue Knot Foundation: For adults with experiences of childhood trauma including child sexual abuse. Operates 9am-5pm Monday-Sunday.
Phone: 1300 657 380
Bravehearts: For those wanting information or support relating to child sexual assault and exploitation. Operates 8:30am to 4:30pm Monday to Friday.
Phone: 1800 272 831
IF YOU ARE IN IMMEDIATE DANGER, PLEASE CALL 000
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Hats off to you Dr.O’Connor!
My understanding is the dowry system in India was outlawed by ex-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
many years ago. However, the system endures, not only in India but also in many other parts of
the world where South Asian communities reside. Irrespective of the professional status of the
bride and her earning power. Problem is, such women are often, at the start, very young and naive enough to not be aware of the red flags and to insist on her parents telling the Groom’s party to “go to hell!”
Often, it is not called a dowry and a bride’s wealthy family will provide it out of a sense of pride and
love for their daughter. Despite this, the Groom’s family remains entitled. The son is generally repeatedly brainwashed by his family to “keep her under control.” Sometimes the marriage endures when the bride’s father-in-law pushes back against the other members. A redeeming feature of the family. No matter how financially secure they are, the couple’s marital problems persist, sometimes
until they die! No matter how much she does, a bride can never be good enough unless she submits to her mother-in-law’s demands. And they use the son’s future inheritance from them as a weapon to manipulate him. And what a potent weapon it is!
Like I always say, women are often their own worst enemies – they steal other women’s husbands from their families, some are terrible mothers – in – law, and what else? But that’s enough to cause the victims terrible mental health issues.
Women, stand up for your sisters!!! Do the right thing by God!
Irrespective of validity of the argument presented in this article, isn’t it telling that some other cultural practices practiced by selected ethnic and religious groups are totally banned from similar scrutiny and criticism in this society.
We definitely need freedom of speech to be incorporated into our constitution along with matching carefully redrafted slander and vilification laws to protect the innocent.
What obtains at present under the auspices of unelected QANGO star chambers such as the HRC and AHPRA is a travesty of the democratic process.