In a significant move to protect individual rights and combat modern slavery, last year Australia introduced a pivotal legal requirement gor all couples getting married.  Your celebrant must meet separately with each member of a couple before marriage. Why is this required? It is all about consent.

Celebrants have always been required to make judgements about whether consent given is free and willing, and where there is any doubt to meet with the person, and if necessary, refuse to proceed with the marriage.

What has changed is that we are now required to meet with both of you to ensure that your consent to your marriage is real and not forced. Meeting separately with each of you privately, helps celebrants to better ensure that every marriage is consensual and free from coercion.

What is Forced Marriage

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Forced marriage is a form of human trafficking.  A forced marriage occurs when either or both of the individuals do not consent freely and willingly to the marriage. Australia recognises three ways in which you may be forced into a marriage:
by being physically forced, often by being threatened with harm either to yourself or to loved ones by being psychologically coerced, or
by being tricked or deceived
A forced marriage can also occur if the person being married is a child, or is someone who lacks the mental capacity to make the decision to marry. Contrary to common belief, forced marriage is not limited to any particular culture, ethnicity, nationality, or religion or religous sub-group, gender or age, though young females are particularly vulnerable to being forced into marriage.

It cuts across or cultures, takes place in Australia (approximately 1 in 4 cases of human trafficking identified by the AFP in the past couple of years, have involved forced marriage), and for reasons that may surprise you.

I've married several same sex couples where one or both was previously married and divorced and where one or both parties confided that their previous marriage, usually at a young age, was a forced marriage perpetrated by their parents in the hope, or belief, that a heterosexual relationship would "sort them out".
A forced marriage is not the same as an arranged marriage. The critical difference being that, in an arranged marriage, both parties, together with their parents, agree to the marriage.

Regardless of whether the marriage takes place in Australia or the  individual is taken overseas,  in Australia forced marriage is considered a crime under the Commonwealth Crimes Legislation Amendment Act of 2013

Criminality applies not only to legal marriages. It can apply to civil marriages, cultural and religious ceremonies, and to civil partnerships and registered relationships. And there are severe penalties for anyone, other than the victim, involved.

The meeting must be face to face

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While technology has enabled celebrants and marrying couples to meet virtually, these individual meetings for the purpose of establishing consent must be held face-to-face in person.

There are good reasons for this, not the least being that, when all the celebrant sees is you on a screen, we have no idea if there is someone else in the room monitoring what you say and controlling your side of the conversation.

The meeting must be in private

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The meeting to establish your consent must be in private.

You may have an interpreter with you

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If you need to, you may have an interpreter with you. In that case I will insist that you use an independent NAATI certified interpreter.

The meeting is only about your consent

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The Marriage Act does not require that you are romantically in love with your intended spouse. So I won't be asking you about that! The Marriage Act does require that you understand what marriage is and that you are freely and willingly consenting to marry that person.

Consent is in the moment

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Giving your consent at our one-on-one meeting is not the end of the matter. Consent is never set and forget. It must be in the moment. Nothing that happens up until the moment where you say the legal vows, the words that create your marriage, locks you into marrying. Not the Notice of Intended Marriage, not the Declaration of No Legal Impediment to Marriage, not your verbal consent before the ceremony starts. You can withdraw consent at any time.

Related Information

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• The Importance of Consent: Why no-one can force you to marry, to kiss in your wedding, or to have sex afterwards

Thanks for reading!