In 2008, Manjula Datta O’Connor was working as a psychiatrist in a private practice at Melbourne’s CBD, usually seeing many corporate clients, when one day a “very distressed” Indian student arrived on a date. The woman told O’Connor she had a “dowry problem”: her husband and sister-in-law were denigrating her for not giving enough dowry, wanting more cash, and controlling her income. When she refused, “this led to violence, verbal abuse and punishment.”
Soon, O’Connor had a number of Indian women, possibly reflecting a growing number of foreign students arriving in Australia, presenting similar stories.
“I recognized the pattern. It was similar to what was found in India,” he says. “There was no knowledge or awareness of this problem in Australia, but it was leading to mental illness, suicide and murder.”
“Most homes in South Asia are quiet and harmonious,” says O’Connor, but dowry abuse is a recognized problem. The dowry offer or application itself, a widespread practice in various cultures, is not considered abusive; rather, abuse, says O’Connor, is the “distortion of a well-intentioned ancient cultural practice,” where gifts or money provided by the bride’s family are intended to help the bride in her married life. , are extorted by the groom and his. family and when a woman’s worth and worth are determined by the wealth she offers.
According to O’Connor, dowry abuse is the key factor in most cases of domestic abuse in the South Asian migrant community. While some women may also face other forms of abuse, such as threats to withdraw visa sponsorship if they do not comply with a spouse, “when you really sink to the bottom, it all starts with dissatisfaction with the amount of things that led to marriage.
The women O’Connor treated in his psychiatric practice were severely traumatized. “I found that these women were in an extremely high state of anxiety and hypervigilance. They have not slept [properly] often for months. They haven’t eaten well in months. They were anemic.
“Their blood pressure was often high when they had never had a blood pressure problem before. Headaches, panic attacks, severe anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation.”
The women O’Connor sees are just the tip of the iceberg. A recent national survey of the South Asian community led by O’Connor found that 32% of those surveyed abused their dowry or knew someone who had.
A personal puzzle
O’Connor’s book Daughters of Durga opens this month. Writing it was an opportunity for O’Connor to put aside everything he has learned about the phenomenon of dowry abuse, but it was also an opportunity for her to confuse her own character, and the streak anti-authoritarian that he has had since he was. a boy.
Growing up in Delhi, O’Connor’s father was loving, kind and selfless, but also sometimes controlling. As he wrote this book, he realized, “I think I’ve been angry about this oppression … and most of my life I think I’ve been rebuking him in small ways all the time.
“A brave, fearless attitude … that’s part of what makes you educated” … Manjula O’Connor Photo: Jackson Gallagher / The Guardian
“Maybe what I’m doing is partly because of my relationship with my dad?”
Although O’Connor’s father did not allow his mother to work outside the family home, he always wanted Manjula to become a doctor and gave her access to the best education possible, which he attributes to her. be very formative.
“In medical school, we were the fashion generation. We were the modern generation. We were the generation that wouldn’t be like our parents, that wouldn’t be afraid of anything,” he says. “There were all these factors that created that kind of brave, fearless attitude … That’s part of what education does to you. “
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Immersing oneself in his childhood resurfaced a fundamental memory. One day in Delhi, a white woman showed up at the family home asking to see her uncle. While his uncle refused to go out, denying the woman’s knowledge, even as a child O’Connor understood that they must have had an affair. “And I remembered thinking,‘ that’s a possibility. You don’t have to be married in your own culture, do you? ‘”
Maybe that planted a seed. Many years later, she fell in love and married a country boy from Australia, who moved directly from Delhi to her new mother-in-law’s farm in west Victoria, where “lamb chops and three vegetables “They quickly became their favorite food in West Victoria. which was “the most beautiful time of my life.”
“Death Against Me”
Years later, in 2012, O’Connor co-founded the Australasia Center for Human Rights and Health, an NGO set up to campaign against dowry abuse and domestic violence in migrant communities.
“After our campaign started,” he says, “the patriarchal structures of our community were against me because they thought I was embarrassing the community by specifically calling the abuse of dowry, and they wanted me to be left alone.
“It simply came to our notice then, but the women themselves would not recognize it and the domestic violence service providers would not know it and the police would not know what to do. The magistrates will not know what to do. “
O’Connor says there has been “constant rejection” over the past decade as he has talked about domestic violence and dowry abuse in his community.
‘[Women are] going out and looking for help in large numbers, but we’re not reaching everyone yet, “says O’Connor. Photo: Jackson Gallagher / The Guardian
The resistance has not discovered it, which has included social isolation, whispering campaigns that say its cause is “false” and that it is only trying to get more patients into its psychiatric practice.
“As if I didn’t have a waiting list in my patient consultation!” she says.
“Every time I heard something like that, the next day at my practice, I would see five or six girls crying, desperate, telling me horrible stories. Now, who should I move to? It was very simple in my mind, “he says.
The work to be done
Dowry abuse is now recognized in the Victoria Family Violence Protection Act, and while awareness is not uniform or consistent, there is a growing recognition among police, immigration officials, and providers. of services that the women you interact with may be suffering from this.
“Certainly, breaking the silence, what we have done is that women do not sit down and take it until they are killed. They’re much more outgoing and looking for help in large numbers, but we’re not reaching everyone yet, ”O’Connor says.
In 2020, a local police officer discovered that during the previous year there had been a group of seven Indian women who committed suicide in the Melbourne suburb of Eping. The analysis showed that five of the seven women had a documented history of domestic violence. They were all new immigrants, living on the outskirts of the city; most had no driver’s license or job.
O’Connor has analyzed his own clinical burden of South Asian women who have escaped domestic abuse, finding that 75% had suicidal thoughts and 17% acted on those thoughts.
“There’s a domestic violence service for immigrant women in Victoria,” says O’Connor. “But there is only one service. We need at least three or four of these services … Women are not getting the help they need. “
The cover of Manjula Datta O’Connor’s Daughters of Durga. Photo: MUP
O’Connor’s next goal is to start a conversation in India. It is a job, however, that is not without burden.
“It’s a double-edged sword in the sense that yes, I think it’s very good that everyone knows that and that women themselves know that they will be heard by the system.
“I am also very aware of how the Indian community feels that I am naming and embarrassing them by calling this word,‘ abuse of dowry ’,” he says. “Both are feelings all the time in my mind.”
In Australia, the National Domestic Violence Counseling Service is at 1800 737 732 and Lifeline is at 13 11 14. In the UK, call the National Domestic Violence Helpline on 0808 2000 247 or visit Women’s Aid. In the U.S., the domestic hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.