Eventually, she took out a two-year intervention order against Beniwal and re-partnered. But in December 2014, just days after the intervention order expired, Godara was found dead – strangled and stabbed in the neck by her estranged husband. Later that night, he killed himself in a road crash.
The coronial inquest into Godara’s death revealed that “the initial discord within the marriage was the result of [Beniwal’s] family’s demands for additional dowry”. As per traditional dowry practice, Godara’s family had gifted her husband gold, diamond necklaces and money to mark their nuptials, but within a year of the marriage he was pressuring Godara for more. When she didn’t meet his demands, he became enraged and abusive, until the consequences were fatal.
Dowry is a centuries-old tradition in South Asia that sees a bride’s family pay the groom and his family cash, clothes, cars and property at the time of marriage. Large sums are often handed over. In Australia, the amount typically sits between $25,000 to $50,000, including bearing the cost of an extravagant wedding ceremony.
The custom of dowry was outlawed in India in 1961, yet still remains commonplace. And today the ritual is giving rise to a dangerous form of exploitation: dowry abuse. Grooms and their families escalate their demands for money and gifts – months, even years, after a wedding – and then resort to threats, harassment and emotional, sexual and physical violence when the bride does not comply.
Alarmingly, a dowry-related death occurs almost every hour in India. That’s about 20 women’s lives taken a day, either by murder or suicide. Dowry-related deaths account for up to half of all homicides of Indian women.
Over the past two decades, India has become the second-largest country of origin for permanent migrants in Australia, and in that time a scourge of dowry abuse has reared its ugly head in expatriate communities.
The true incidence of dowry abuse in Australia is unknown, but in a national survey in 2020 (completed largely by the South Asian community) 32 per cent of respondents said they’d suffered dowry abuse themselves or knew someone who had. Between 2016 and 2018, at least 72 cases of dowry-related abuse were documented.
Concerningly, most Australian domestic violence service providers are reporting an increase in dowry violence, and dowry deaths have been recorded here, too.
It’s against this bleak backdrop, spurred on by these statistics, that I – a psychiatrist specialising in migrant women's mental health - have made it my mission to eliminate dowry abuse.
More than 12 years ago, I began my work supporting victim-survivors
of domestic family violence in Australia.
My psychiatric practice in Melbourne is largely focused on gender-based violence in South Asian communities, and in 2012, having treated many women for mental health harm caused by domestic violence, I identified a pattern of dowry abuse.
The demands and abuse were similar to those in India: a perceived lack of dowry gifts from a bride and her family would lead to emotional abuse from her husband, and often his family. This consisted of disrespecting and diminishing the worth of the woman: chastising her for ordinary daily events; denouncing her abilities as a cook, homemaker, social being, job-hunter and English speaker; criticising her appearance and clothes. This was compounded by persistent shaming and contempt for her parents and family: for being too lower class, uneducated or unsophisticated.
Specific circumstances in Australia, when Indian women have migrated as part of an arranged marriage, can make dowry abuse more likely – and harder for women to leave.
In the Indian “marriage market”, Indian men with Australian citizenship are highly prized. For families back in India, they offer the promise of a new life in a wealthy country, and can therefore command an excessive dowry and a grand wedding, all paid for by the bride’s family.
Often the men stay true to this promise. It needs to be stated that the majority of grooms and their families who follow the dowry custom are respectful of the bride and her family.
But for a portion of these women, their hopes and dreams descend into a nightmare. The bride arrives in Australia on a temporary partner visa or visitor visa. She is far from her networks and family, and is vulnerable – with no knowledge of systems nor support. Her sponsorship can be withdrawn by the husband-perpetrator on a whim, leaving her homeless with no Centrelink or Medicare support, and with the threat of deportation.
I speak to Sujatha, a smart, educated woman who grew up in India and had a successful career as a manager. “I was in heaven in India; I had a great life,” she tells me. Aged 30, she was in no hurry to get married. But an offer of an Indian-Australian groom was too good to refuse.
Sujatha’s father, a wealthy businessman from North India, adds that he hadn’t been concerned about getting his daughter married quickly. But according to her grandmother, she was too old. “She must be married off. What is wrong with you?” Sujatha’s grandmother told her son. “Everyone in the neighbourhood is talking about it. Get her married.” And he felt compelled to do so.
The couple married, and a dowry of $40,000 was given in cash. A similar amount was spent on the wedding, plus more on gifts for the new in-laws.
It all went bad after Sujatha arrived in Australia. She found out her husband worked part-time due to a heavy drinking problem, but wanted to buy a big house in the Adelaide Hills. He demanded she ask her father to send him money to buy the property, but she refused. She was a strong woman and she was offended. She spoke loudly and told him off for drinking too much.
Incensed, her husband hit her, then hit himself and called the police to say that he was the victim of violence. Sujatha was charged, and a restraining order was issued against her. She was thrown out of the house in the middle of the night in a city in which she knew no-one.
In time, Sujatha received her permanent residency visa, but she has not been able to reclaim her extensive dowry.
Her case highlights the trans- national nature of the crime of dowry abuse. Grooms can exploit their bride, knowing that no law can catch up with them. In Sujatha’s case, dowry was given in India, but the crime happened in Australia. Her husband ensured all transactions occurred in cash or were transferred into his brother’s Indian bank account. Australian courts cannot catch up with him. Extradition orders have been issued by the Indian courts, but he has not returned to face justice.
Other cases have been more public, splashed on the front pages of newspapers. In the 2010s, a spate of domestic violence-related murders and suicides shocked Victoria’s Indian community – including one estimate of 15 deaths between 2013 and 2015. Dowry was reported as a factor in some of the cases, and the role of multiple perpetrators identified.
In response, and inspired by the strong activism of Indian women leaders and academics in India, I led the Australasian Centre for Human Rights and Health (ACHRH) in a public campaign against dowry abuse, with a petition that demanded it be included as an example of financial abuse within the Victorian laws against family violence. We made a significant submission to the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence in 2015, and in 2019 our bill was passed.
The Victorian legislation now specifically mentions dowry in its definition of family violence. This major victory was joined by the federal government’s announcement in June 2018 that it would hold a Senate Inquiry into the practice of dowry and incidence of dowry abuse in Australia.
The campaign was met with pushback and resistance. As part of the inquiry, more than 80 submissions were received from Australia’s and India’s abandoned brides. Other submissions were made by men’s groups claiming that the dowry problem was fake: that young brides marry Indian-Australian men, come to Australia to get permanent residency, and start making false claims of dowry abuse and dowry confiscation.
But the Senate report disagreed, further stating that dowry abuse needs to be acknowledged as an example of family violence in the Family Law Act, and that temporary visa holders should be allowed a pathway to permanent residency if they suffer dowry-related abuse in Australia.
Next, we want to ensure that dowry abuse will be featured in coercive control legislation in NSW. But legislation is only part of the equation.
In essence, dowry increases the value of sons and decreases the value of daughters. This sets out gender norms that aid and abet family violence. The tradition of dowry creates an enabling environment of abuse, and has produced a culture of entitlement in grooms and boys. And it dehumanises women, treating them as property.
Dowry abuse is structural violence. And it needs a structural response,
a societal response. Without it, the consequences will continue to be fatal.
Professor Manjula Datta O’Connor’s book Daughters of Durga: Dowries, Gender Violence and Family in Australia is out now (Melbourne University Press, $34.99).
If you or anyone you know is in need of help, call 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732, or Lifeline on 13 11 14.
