AFP officers target Victorian schools to stamp out forced child marriages
Victorian schools are the latest battleground in the fight to stop child marriage in Australia. And there’s growing evidence child grooms are being married off.
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Federal police are deploying officers to Victorian schools to save children that are victims of forced marriage.
The AFP has been deploying officers to Melbourne and regional schools in recent months, where they have intelligence to suggest there may be child brides and grooms.
Across the country between July and December last year, the AFP received 45 “referrals” to investigate possible cases, including one with at least 12 potential victims.
Officers have spoken to students, teachers and parents to educate them on how to spot a victim and have called on anyone who suspects someone they know is in an illegal union or are victims themselves.
Human trafficking unit Detective Sergeant Bevan Moroney said many people do not realise that it is an issue in Australia and that police suspect the cases they know about are the tip of the iceberg.
“We go to a school because one of the girls may be at risk of forced marriage,” he said.
“We go in there and talk to the school let them know what we do and that there is some support programs and all of a sudden we get more reports coming through.
“The more we get it out there the more that people talk about it.”
The AFP have had contact with at least two Victorian schools this year and will be continuing the program by also carrying out awareness presentations with community organisations and non-government organisations.
Forced marriage is when children under the age of 16 are married off to older partners or someone is bound in matrimony against their will, either legally or informally.
In Victoria, victims have been reported in Melbourne, and also in regional towns such as Shepparton.
Most Australian victims are child brides, however, increasingly there is evidence of parents marrying off child grooms.
In an interstate case a 14-year-old girl was allegedly wed illegally and forced to consummate the union, giving birth by the time she was 16-years-old.
In Melbourne a 34-year-old man was jailed in 2017 after pleading guilty to marrying a 14-year-old girl at a Noble Park mosque in 2016.
Ibrahim Omerdic the imam who conducted the wedding ceremony was also prosecuted, but both men were charged under the Marriage Act not the new federal laws.
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Despite the prevalence of the practice, prosecution is extremely difficult.
Victims are deeply embedded in communities making it is difficult to get witnesses to testify.
Forced marriage was included in Australia’s criminal code in 2013, giving the AFP
more power to investigate suspected cases, but only one case is currently before the courts.
The Australian Red Cross is working withy the AFP in Victoria and other states offering up to 200 days support as part of a federally funded program.