Priya* was in her 20s when she married a man she had never met.

Her parents paid about $20,000 and 300g of gold jewellery as a dowry — a traditional but illegal transaction that smooths the path for many Indian marriages.

Priya left her home in India and arrived in Australia, where her new husband lived with his brother’s family.

But within a few months, she says, she faced harassment that caused her marriage to break down and her newborn baby to suffer health problems, all because she became pregnant with a girl.