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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-10-28 Daily Xml
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Forced Marriage

The Hon. T.T. NGO (14:39): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Ngo has the floor.

The Hon. T.T. NGO: —asking the Minister for the Status of Women a question about forced marriage.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.T. NGO: We know that forced marriage and honour-based violence prevent women and girls having access to education, seeking employment and having control over their own destiny. My question to the minister is: could the minister tell the chamber about the recent workshop, co-hosted by the Office for Women, which featured Ms Jasvinder Sanghera?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:40): I thank the honourable member for his important question. This week, in conjunction with Multicultural SA, the Multicultural Communities Council SA and #SpeakUp, the Office for Women hosted a workshop with Ms Jasvinder Sanghera.

As Minister for the Status of Women here in South Australia, I am very pleased to lend my support to Ms Sanghera and the remarkable work that she is engaged in. Ms Sanghera is a passionate advocate, author and orator on honour-based violence and forced marriages. She has published three books detailing her life's experiences and assisted in the creation of the film Honour Diaries. She has been recognised through multiple awards and speaks from experience about the concept of honour and the courage required to challenge and redefine cultural norms.

Listening to Ms Sanghera's story, you can only feel heartbreak for what she herself has endured and also be extremely impressed by what she has achieved despite this. Ms Sanghera refused to abide by her family's cultural practice of forced marriage and, as a result, has been disowned by them since she was 16 years old. She now has a family of her own, and her own children remain disconnected from and disowned by her grandparents as well.

Despite having no contact with her family to this day, Ms Sanghera also endured knowing that her sister, also forced into an arranged marriage, committed suicide by setting herself alight because of her very unhappy marriage situation. Ms Sanghera's family saw this as a preferable outcome (seeing their daughter ignite herself) to the disgrace that a divorce would have caused them. It is hard to believe, isn't it, sir?

In this space, Ms Sanghera seeks to raise public awareness on the issues of forced marriage and honour-based violence. She speaks with the authority and courage that come from direct personal experience. She does so in the hope that those affected by these damaging practices can find peace and enlightenment—or Karma Nirvana, being the name of the UK-based charity founded in 1993 by Ms Sanghera, of which she is chief executive.

Ms Sanghera was also involved in lobbying for legislative change in the UK. She was born and bred in the UK and educated there, so it is not like this happened to her while she was living in a little village somewhere. She was living in the UK in the school system and under the protection of those laws, yet still had a shocking experience. This legislative change led to the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act of 2007 and led to a campaign for the introduction of The Day of Memory for Britain's Lost Women, which takes place annually on 14 July as a day when we remember those women killed as a result of honour-based violence and abuse.

In Australia, we take forced marriage and honour-based violence seriously. Under the commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995, forced marriage is recognised as a serious form of exploitation and a crime. Specific legislation preventing forced marriage was passed in February 2013 and includes a spectrum of slavery, servile marriage and related offences. I am advised that in 2013 the Australian Federal Police received 70 new referrals relating to human trafficking and slavery matters, taking the total to 469 since 2004. Almost 43 per cent of these investigations related to sexual exploitation, 35 per cent to other forms of labour exploitation, and 17 per cent related to forced marriage. So it is occurring here in this country, even under the protections of the laws of the land here.

I would also like to thank hosts Multicultural SA and the Multicultural Communities Council of SA for supporting the workshop. I also want to acknowledge the emergence of #SpeakUp, a new South Australian activist organisation inspired initially by Ms Sanghera's powerful writings. Not only have they organised to bring Ms Sanghera to Adelaide, they have also supported her in speaking events in Melbourne and Sydney. It is wonderful to see passionate support for these kinds of speakers and causes at the local level.

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