00:00Aisha's a really vivacious, sharp 26-year-old, originally from Western Sydney.
00:08When she was 12, she recalls really clearly her mum sitting her down, patting the bed
00:13and saying, come here, I want to show you a photo of a much older relative, the man
00:17that you're going to marry.
00:19Aisha grew up in a very traditional Muslim Indian household, and she knew from a young
00:25age that her parents had aspirations for her to go down that same traditional pathway,
00:31to be married quite young and to have a family.
00:35But Aisha always wanted a little bit more for herself, and that really led to a lot
00:39of clashes with her parents.
00:41It all came to a head when she was 15.
00:44She overheard a conversation between her mum and her auntie in India, where her mum said,
00:49with book tickets, she's out of control and we need to get her married off.
00:53Aisha knew that this meant that her parents were planning to send her overseas to marry
00:58that older relative, and she also knew that if she went down that pathway, that there
01:02would be no recourse for her, that that was the pathway she would be on.
01:07So Aisha essentially planned her escape.
01:10First thing she did was went to her school principal, a trusted figure, and told him
01:14exactly what was going on, told him that her parents had booked these plane tickets.
01:18And he said to her, you need to get your passport, you need to bring it over.
01:22Just a little aside here, at the time that this was all going on, forced marriage was
01:25not yet a legal, a crime, I should say.
01:29And so there were very few legal avenues, there were few support services available
01:33for victim survivors.
01:35So Aisha's principal got her legal aid, got legal aid involved in this, and legal aid
01:42said, we can put you on an airport watch list.
01:45However, there was a catch at 15, Aisha was a minor, and in order to get on that airport
01:51watch list, she needed to take her parents to court.
01:54So she did that, but she knew instinctively that that was a very risky move for her personally.
02:00And she also knew that it would mean that she would potentially never get to see her
02:04parents again.
02:06Let's have a listen to what Aisha had to say about that.
02:08The thing that's unfortunate about my situation is that it wasn't just my parents, it was
02:14my whole community, it was my whole extended family that were quite indoctrinated into
02:19this belief.
02:20It wasn't just my family, and it was also my cousins, and I couldn't see my sister or
02:24my brother.
02:25I still can't see my sister or my brother because they are all so scared to do the wrong
02:31thing and hurt my family that they don't want to come see me.
02:35So it's like, I don't have any members of my family that I can talk to.
02:38And it's really, it's like a big piece of your life is missing.
02:42It's brief.
02:43I've been grieving for the last 10 years, and I'm still grieving.
02:46According to the AFP, in the last financial year, there were 91 reported cases of forced
02:52marriage in Australia.
02:54Since 2018, that's around 530 cases.
02:57So it is really, really common.
03:00We also know that it doesn't necessarily discriminate according to demographics.
03:04There's not one group of people who we can say, this is going to be something that's
03:09a problem in this community.
03:11It's across the communities in Australia, though it is predominantly a crime, specifically
03:17for young women.
03:19Most of the reported cases to the AFP involve girls under the age of 16.
03:25So it is very much a young woman's problem here.
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