A western Sydney man who abandoned his wife overseas after she fell out with his mother has been convicted over what is known as ‘exit trafficking’.
It is a type of modern slavery where women are tricked or coerced into leaving a country, in this case Australia, and prevented from returning.
The 44-year-old man, who lives in Merrylands in Sydney’s south-west, took his wife on ‘a charity mission’ to their home country of Afghanistan in January 2018, police said.
But the man, known as AR to protect his family, only had a return ticket for himself. His wife did not realise that her ticket was one-way to Afghanistan.
The day after he returned to Australia, AR wrote to the Department of Home Affairs, cancelling the sponsorship of his wife’s visa, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
He did so because his mum didn’t like his wife, and it resulted in the woman he had been married to for four years being stranded overseas.
The woman’s relatives helped get her back to Australia, where she reported her husband to the police.
AR’s conviction last Friday was the third such exit trafficking conviction in Australia.
He was sentenced to two years jail with 12 months of it to be served in the community on a good behaviour bond.
A Sydney man who abandoned his wife overseas after she fell out with his mother has been convicted over what is known as ‘exit trafficking’. Burqa-clad women are pictured behind barbed wire
The first exit-trafficking conviction was in 2021, when a man from Lidcombe in western Sydney threatened to murder a woman unless she boarded a flight to India with her infant child. That scene is pictured
Human rights activist Helena Hassani said there has been an increase in such oppression of women, often in migrant communities, in Australia.
While there are many cases involving men from Afghan and other migrant communities taking their wives abroad and leaving them there, she said there are also many cases where ‘Aussie men marry women from Asia, bring them here, but marry them into servitude, or treat them like sex workers’.
Many women, such as AR’s wife, are only in Australia on partner visas, leaving them reliant on their husband’s sponsorship to stay in the country.
Some women in these communities are discouraged from using money, getting an education or working outside the home because the men want a ‘servant’.
‘It’s a cultural practice where the less educated women are, the happier men are, because then no one is challenging them, no one is confronting them, and they just live the way they want to live,’ Ms Hassani told the publication.
Acting Detective Sergeant Sarah Manning of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said exit trafficking often goes unreported.
Human rights activist Helena Hassani (pictured) said there has been an increase in such oppression of women, often in migrant communities, in Australia
‘No one has the right to ‘cancel’ another person’s visa, including the visa sponsor,’ she said.
‘This type of behaviour is a Commonwealth offence and carries a potential 12-year jail term.’
The first exit-trafficking conviction was in 2021, when a man from Lidcombe in western Sydney threatened to murder a woman unless she boarded a flight to India with her infant child.
The horrific interaction was captured on Sydney Airport’s CCTV after the anti-human trafficking group Anti Slavery Australia told the AFP what happened.
Anyone with information about potential modern slavery or trafficking is urged to report it to Australian Federal Police on 131 237.
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