Eliminating Forced Marriage

ACRATH has been engaged in work to prevent forced marriage since 2008. Recently this work involved preparing a submission for an Inquiry into certain aspects of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Annual Report 2019-20 – child and forced marriage. the inquiry is being conducted by the Human Rights Sub-committee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affair, Defence and Trade.

ACRATH’s submission provides four recommendations to support practical, realistic, and achievable measures to address the vulnerabilities of forced marriage victims – survivors in Australia, our region and globally. It is ACRATH’s hope the Australian Government will include forced and child marriage as part of Australia’s aid program placed equally alongside gender equality and women’s empowerment. While ACRATH acknowledge’s the huge task of eliminating forced marriage globally, we are confident that it can be eliminated when government and civil society collaborate, using their respective strengths and working across national and international borders.  The ACRATH submission can be found here (Submission No 3). ACRATH was invited to give evidence at a public hearing for this Inquiry on 18th June 2021 along with Anti-Slavery Australia and Walk Free.

To access ACRATH’s resources on Forced Marriage click here.