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By:Surinder Jain.

SBS and some independent film producers have recently produced films on the deplorable dowry system prevalent in some parts of India and resulting violence against women. Armed with that evidence, on 26th June the Australian Senate referred the provisions of the practice of dowry and the incidence of dowry abuse in Australia to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by 6 December 2018.

All Hindus condemn the incidences of dowry demand, it has no sanction in religion or in the constitution or law. What is your experience with dowry? Have you in the past five years come across an incidence of a dowry demand with someone you know in Australia. Has there been any violence involved.

Financial coercion, emotional abuse and even physical violence in marriage relations is rampant across many groups. It would be a fallacy to say that there was no domestic violence in Australia until Hindus arrived.

We hope that the senate committee does a good job and eradicates financial coercion and resulting violence from Australian Hindu society for ever. We support this effort fully and whole heatedly.

But it would have been far better if the senate had a more ambitious target of eradicating gender related financial demands, coercion and violence among all Australians, not just dowry among Indians or Hindus, not just for financial demands but for any reasons whatsoever.