'I was so scared': A forced-marriage survivor's harrowing story – and escape

In this episode we bring you the remarkable story of Miriam* (not her real name), a survivor of forced marriage. Often confused with arranged marriage, forced marriage means one person is not giving their full consent – sometimes due to coercion, deception, incapacitation or threats. Each year the Australian Federal Police deal with about 90 cases, although this is thought to represent a fraction of the problem, which was made a crime in Australia in 2013. Miriam escaped her fate by chipping away at the glue her parents had used to seal her window, and running away just one week before her planned wedding to a man she did not know. In today’s episode, we have changed her name, omitted some details, and also used AI technology to disguise her voice and protect her identity, for this difficult conversation about the feature story – "No Going Back" – which you can read in the pages of our magazine, by Good Weekend senior writer Melissa Fyfe. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.