Forced marriage crime spike: Aussie kids taken as child brides in alarming numbers

Madeleine West has been in some of Australia’s biggest crime shows. Now, she turns detective in helping expose the striking number of Aussie children being coerced into forced marriages.

Exclusive: Australian children as young as seven are being pressured into forced marriages in shocking numbers and tragically, the majority don’t know they are victims.

The hidden crime is surging in suburbia and most victims have been betrayed by their closest relatives.

The stunning revelation from Detective Superintendent Jayne Crossling, a senior member of the Australian Federal Police, said while the crimes attract little attention from the wider public: the number of child brides is increasing.

“What troubles me the most is the volume,” Det Supt. Crossing, a lead investigator for the AFP’s Human Trafficking division. said.

“Of all the matters referred to the AFP, forced marriage makes up 40 per cent of what we do.”

Listen to a sneak peek of Det Sup. Crossing’s findings in a new podcast above.

Detective Superintendent Jayne Crossling is a senior member of the Australian Federal Police. Her job is to find and bust open human trafficking offences. Picture: David Caird

To date, the Australian Federal Police has launched 92 investigations into forced marriage for the 2019/20 financial year.

Allegations of forced marriage accounted for 41 per cent of AFP investigations into human trafficiking and of the 92 victims - 47 were under the age of 18.

Additionally, the AFP investigated four incidences of trafficking in children.

But the underground nature of the crime means for every one child bride investigated by the AFP, it is estimated there are another four to five victims who slip under the radar.

Social worker and Monash University researcher Laura Vidal, who has worked on the frontlines of forced marriage for over a decade, said warned COVID-19 had suppressed and skewed recent data.

Children and young people are often betrayed by family -- the very people they should be able to trust -- and married off in secret ceremonies. Picture: Getty

In Australia, an individual under the age of 18 cannot give legal consent to be married – unless a court grants leave in exceptional circumstances when a party is 16 years or older.

The disruption to school attendance is of particular concern, according to Vidal.

“My experience largely has been with young women who are expected to travel overseas to marry,” she said.

“And interestingly, there has been very, very little visibility of this issue in the context of COVID-19, because largely I was doing this work directly with young people and schools were really pivotal ... because they would make a disclosure at school.

“School was a safe place.”

Det Supt Crossling added: “We’re still not sure of the impact of COVID, it could be that some of the crime types have gotten worse and some have gotten less worse.”

“It could be that some of this offending is actually slightly more hidden, which concerns us because with people isolating, it could be that the forced marriage crime type is actually being pushed further underground.”

Actor Madeleine West was “devastated” to discover children were being taken as brides in forced marriages in Australia. Photo: Daily Telegraph Gaye Gerard

Sixteen-year-old Lesa* sought help through her school counsellor after she overheard her parents telling family members overseas they believed she was ready to marry.

They began buying her expensive jewellery and restricting her movements.

She was told she could not attend university and instead a groom had been chosen for her overseas.

With a social worker, she was able to negotiate the complicated issue and remain unmarried.

However, Vidal is aware marriages also occur on Australian soil, often with a family or community ceremony recognising the marriage and legal registration postponed until the bride is of age.

Actor and activist, Madeleine West, who has volunteered in Morocco helping victims of forced marriage, interviewed Det Supt Crossling about the concerning trend in Invisible Heroes, a smoothfm podcast series available on Monday.

“It’s happening here. It’s happening in private schools, it’s happening to girls from all kinds of backgrounds. It’s so easy to say, ‘well that’s an overseas problem so I can turn a blindeye’ but it’s very much happening in Australia. And we need to take action.”

To hear a full interview with the AFP’s Det Supt Crossling on her work to prevent human trafficking tune into Madeleine West’s smoothfm podcast, Invisible Heroes.

If you are in a forced marriage or are worried you are going to be forced to marry, contact www.mybluesky.org.au

Originally published as Forced marriage crime spike: Aussie kids taken as child brides in alarming numbers