Australia's 'hidden' abusive migrant marriages

Kanya thought she was starting a new life in Australia after arriving from India to marry her husband, but it quickly turned into a nightmare.
She was barred from going out on her own, forced to cook and clean for her partner's family, and made to sleep outdoors if she did not complete her tasks.
The fate of the 18-year-old, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, mirrors that of others in "slave-like" relationships that Salvation Army worker Jenny Stanger has taken in at a Sydney refuge for trafficked people in recent years.
The women came to Australia under the promise of a happy marriage, only to be exploited by their partners.

"It's an absolute deception on the part of the perpetrator," Stanger told AFP of a problem involving nearly a quarter of her safehouse's residents. Immigration figures show women in such situations come from China, India, the Philippines and Vietnam among others.
"Marriage was the tool that was used to exploit the women for profit, gain or personal advantage."

In a typical case, the migrant wife would face "extreme isolation, extreme denial of their basic rights around freedom of movement, possibly an exploitation of their labour...And being denied money", she said.
Getting a sense of how many marriage visas under Australia's partner migration programme are used to bring women in for exploitation is difficult. Social workers say victims are often deliberately isolated and threatened if they seek help.

Researcher Samantha Lyneham, co-author of the first Australian study looking into the exploitation of women through migrant relationships beyond forced marriages, said the reluctance of victims to report crimes was a problem -- such is their dependence on their abusers.
Lyneham said the fear of being deported, which stemmed from the "precarious immigration status" the women faced, was a key barrier, along with language and also mistrust of police after bad experiences in their home countries.
An inaugural Global Slavery Index published by the Walk Free Foundation in October said roughly 30 million people were living in modern-day slavery, of whom up to 3,300 were in Australia.

Official Australian data between July 2001 and June 2011 showed 337,127 people were granted partner migration visas, with Britain, China and India the most common countries of origin.
Between July 2006 and December 2011, 3,654 people on the visas obtained protection under the Family Violence Provision.
This allows them to apply for permanent residency if they or a family member are subjected to violence. About 12 per cent came from China, 10 per cent from the Philippines and eight percent from Vietnam. Others came from India, Britain, Thailand and Fiji.