WA FORCED MARRIAGE
NETWORK
879. Hon NICK GOIRAN to the Leader of the House representing
the Minister for Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence:
I
refer to the report in The West Australian of Saturday, 5 September entitled
''These are the kids being forced to wed''.
(1) Is the
minister aware of the WA Forced Marriage Network?
(2) If yes to
(1), is the Department of Communities working together with this network to
ensure that forced marriages are identified by frontline workers?
(3) What
mandatory requirements are currently in place to report suspicions of forced
marriages?
Hon SUE
ELLERY replied:
I thank the honourable member for
some notice of the question.
(1) Yes.
(2) As reported
in The West Australian, the Department of Communities is a member of the
WA Forced Marriage Network. Those subject to the provisions of the Children and
Communities Services Act 2004 have a mandatory requirement to report if there
is a belief that sexual harm has occurred, including in the context of the
forced marriage.
(3) There is no
mandatory requirement for a forced marriage report to be made to the Department
of Communities. Any suspicions of forced marriage should be made to the
Australian Federal Police.