'Internet brides' abused and held captive in suburban Australian homes
By Erin Parke
Posted yesterday at 9:11pm

An explosion of social media sites promoting prospective young Asian brides has caused a spike in abuse and exploitation, with reports some women are being held captive in suburban homes in situations that could constitute human trafficking.

Six women from Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines have revealed their stories to ABC News in the hope of preventing other women being lured into abusive relationships with Australian men.

"We have seen some horrendous cases where there's been really severe physical violence and where women have simply felt unable to leave the house," migration lawyer Kathy Bogoyev said.

"Some of the cases we've seen would step over into the federal jurisdiction in terms of sexual servitude and almost forced labour type of offences, so I think there's a bit of overlap between these serious cases and some of the human trafficking and slavery-type offences as well."

Social worker Alicia Asic, from the support organisation Multicultural Futures in Perth, said she was also seeing a growing number of so-called "internet brides" being abused.

"There's been an increase in referrals for women, from mainly Asian backgrounds, who have married Australian men to start a better life and found themselves in a very unhealthy and dangerous situation," she said. "There is deprivation of liberty, imprisonment, physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

"They are extra vulnerable because a lot of them are still learning English [and] they're not aware of their rights in Australia.
"A lot of them aren't able to access a phone or internet, and they're not aware of how to go about seeking help to get them out of the situation they're in."
Stories: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-02/ ... s/11165506

ive been led to believe that the spouse can lodge a complaint with the police for violence offences & be granted a bridging protection type visa to allow her to vacate the marital home & live in the country until gaining permanent residency with all the social security benefits in the meantime.

How the hell do they gain visas when legitimate applicants are routinely denied?

I had to laugh at an Aussie I met at PP airport. He told me the story of a Khmer girl he took back to OZ, and once there, the terrible time he had which finally ended with her having full citizenship and half of everything he had worked for including his house. Told me how she wouldn't work or lift a finger around the house from the moment they left Cambodia, and soon knew all the laws and how to get him in the sXxt with the Oz police.

Anyhow he recovered from that and was back to find the right one this time. He asked if I had any advice, so I said maybe don't take them out of the country.

There are some men who treat girls badly. Each situation is different.

When these girls go to English classes they are told, if your husband hits you, you will get the house and a big chunk of his money. With some girls, for the amount of money they get, it is worth telling a few lies.

Not going against the gist of this article that some brides are exploited, but....

On the other hand, I know of a lot of these girls that have a game plan right from the get-go of marrying an aussie...that gets them a spouse visa leading to permanent residency and eventually citizenship. Hence a better life. They find work, often within their own local community whether that be Thai, Philippine et al, and become self sufficient. And not too uncommon, leave her husband if she's not happy with the relationship or getting what she wants for another, better guy there.

If these girls live in the cities and are Thai or Philippino for example there are big local communities from their origin country that they gravitate to and if they don't already know what they can do in Australia as far as their rights are concerned, these groups will fill them in.

If you marry someone they get half your stuff. That's always been the deal. You can't complain about it if you later split, you know this from the beginning.