Australian Visa System Challenges for Domestic Violence Survivors

For women on temporary visas experiencing domestic and family violence (DFV) in Australia, their perpetrators are often also their visa sponsors.

Returning to their home countries is usually unthinkable, as many are terrified of being separated from their Australian children, or they know they will face stigma or abuse over the ended relationship.

The Department of Home Affairs has family violence provisions under the Migration Act, but the application asks for proof the relationship was "genuine" via documents that usually do not exist.

Lawyers and experts say the department has the process backwards, with many applicants "falling down at the first step".

For migrant mother Sophia, which is a name she has chosen to protect her identity, the abuse perpetrated by her then-husband and visa sponsor included physical, verbal and sexual abuse.

She also survived coercive control and was not permitted to leave the house, learn English or access money.

"He controlled my communication and isolated me.

"He said, 'If you could contact your sister, if you share anything to your sister … I will deport you'."

Sophia said she resorted to secretly collecting cans from bins to exchange for 10 cents each so she could buy food for her child.

When the relationship ended, she was eventually supported by Settlement Services International to apply for the Home Affairs family violence provisions.

Sophia was required to provide proof her relationship was "genuine" through joint bills, bank accounts, leases, mortgages, or even invitations addressed to the couple.

She had access to none of those things due to the coercive control.

Sophia applied for the provisions in 2023 and is still waiting.

'Pillars of the relationship'

Immigration Advice and Rights Centre senior solicitor Kristie Mellor said the department had its process backwards.

"They look at what they call the pillars of the relationship, which includes financial aspects of the relationship, the nature of the household, the social aspects of the relationship, and the nature of the couple's commitment to each other," she said.

The department's process means it must decide whether the relationship was "genuine" before assessing claims of DFV.

Ms Mellor said the sequence was highly problematic with many clients "falling down at the first step".

"You'd usually be looking at joint bank accounts or things to show they've pooled their finances as a couple. [But] where a client's experienced financial abuse, for example, those documents are essentially impossible."

She said if the department were to consider DFV evidence first, then due to the nature of the incidents occurring within an intimate partnership, it could then "assume the relationship is genuine".

Ms Mellor said the provisions were "really tricky to navigate without legal assistance", and she feared for those who could not get support.

'We're sorry, you have to go home'

Legal Aid ACT lawyer Jessica Liao said the provisions excluded swathes of temporary visa holders.

Ms Liao said migrants who were secondary applicants to their partner's student visa were among those excluded.

"So if the person experiences family violence in that situation, then there's no way to access those protections," she said.

"And Canberra's a big student town," her colleague, Legal Aid ACT lawyer Lyn Payne, said.

"There are a lot of people here, international students, and we do see, unfortunately, quite a lot of women who are dependent on their husband's student visa. So the husband's here studying, the wife has come, sometimes there's children, and there's family violence.

"All they can do if they want to leave the violent relationship, is to leave the country."

Ms Payne said this was problematic as a partner's student visa had the potential to lead to permanent skills-based visas, which could compel a victim-survivor to stay in an unsafe relationship for immigration security.

When Ms Payne was asked whether she believed the omission of some temporary visas from the provisions was an oversight, she disagreed.

Status unknown

Ms Liao said many clients had little knowledge about their immigration status.

"We've even seen people who've come from domestic violence, leave relationships with violence and not realise what visa they were holding," she said.

"Even people who are permanent residents, not knowing that they were permanent residents and they could actually leave those relationships without the threat of being sent back or needing to report to the Department of Home Affairs."

It is those situations, similar to her own, that have prompted Sophia to share this message with new migrants:

Perpetrators ask friends to lie

Professor of Criminology Marie Segrave has researched temporary migration and DFV.

She said perpetrators who were aware of the department's "genuine" relationship test were able to derail it by creating "suspicion".

"Perpetrators try to ensure that victims aren't on the lease, that they don't have a shared bank account, that they're basically in control of every aspect of their lives," Professor Segrave said.

"They can also demand payment for a visa so that they can say, 'No this person basically was paying me to stay in the country'.

"But it was, in fact, part of the pattern of coercion that they were trying to get more money from the victim and trying to control the victim through this creation of a debt."

Professor Segrave said that as part of the government's national plan to end violence against women and children, "this would be a major area of reform that would be transformative".

'Unprecedented' visa cancellations

In a statement, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said he had expanded the number of visa classes that could access assistance for domestic and family violence, "and lowered the barrier to accessing assistance".

"The character test allows the government to cancel the visa of anyone who doesn't meet the standards of our community, and we can use those powers to protect people in our community."

In a separate statement, a Department of Home Affairs spokesperson said there were also processes in place to stop known perpetrators from sponsoring further partner visas.

"Any future visa applications by a sponsor who has previously been associated with an application granted under the FVPs [family violence provisions] would be appropriately scrutinised by the department," the spokesperson said.

"Limitations apply to the number of partner visas an individual can sponsor", the spokesperson said, including a lifetime limit of two.