By Anthony Brown
Seventeen Filipina women and four children have died violently in Australia since 1980. In most cases, their Australian partners were implicated.
A national Filipina women's organisation, the Centre for Philippine Concerns Australia (CPCA), believes the deaths are related to the high incidence of domestic violence in Filipina- Australian marriages and to the myth that Asian women are sexually willing and submissive.
The CPCA is calling on the federal government to establish an inquiry into the deaths and the related issue of domestic violence. It believes that women who meet Australian men through introduction agencies or correspondence are most at risk.
A Brisbane-based CPCA researcher believes Filipina women enter into relationships with men they hardly know because they want to escape the poverty in the Philippines and to help their families.
A 1992 study found an increasing number of Australian men were serial sponsors of Filipina women — these are men who repeatedly sponsor women. The study found a high rate of violence in these relationships.
Although out for two years, none of the report's recommendations have been implemented — much to the concern of Filipino social workers in Australia.
Husbands who murder
In the early hours of April 4, 1993, unemployed plumber Bruce Hughes broke into his estranged Filipina partner Mila Borador Mills' Morningside unit and attacked her in her bedroom with a block of wood.
Hughes, 38, and Mila, 36, had separated the November before after an 18-month relationship.
When police later found Mila, they initially thought from the amount of blood and the state of her body that she was the victim of a frenzied knife attack.
She died without regaining consciousness the day after the attack at Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital. Hughes is currently serving a life sentence for her murder.
Since Mila's death, two other Filipinas have been killed. One died in a suspicious house fire. The other, who was pregnant, was strangled and her body dumped in a gully. Since Mila's death, three other women are listed as missing; they are all feared dead.
Four children born to Filipina women in Australia have also been killed since 1980: an 11-month-old baby girl was bashed with a hammer, two girls were strangled, and one child died in a house fire with his mother.
In nearly all the deaths and the disappearances, the Australian spouses and fathers were implicated. Five men are currently serving prison sentences for the murder or manslaughter of their Filipina partners.
One man is serving a 12-year sentence for the manslaughter of his two children.
Two other men have had their cases dropped due to lack of evidence.
Another man has been charged with his wife's murder; his case is due for trial soon.
Two men died with their partners in a double suicide-murder pact, and one man jumped off a cliff after bashing his baby daughter to death.
Joseph Sokol, 40, from Blacktown in NSW was convicted in 1987 of the murder of his 17-year old Filipina bride, Rowena.
Sokol, who tried twice to commit suicide after being arrested for her murder, visited her one afternoon and shot her five times with a rifle in her front yard.
In 1990, Charles Schembri, 41, an unemployed truck driver from Melbourne, was jailed for the manslaughter of Generosa Bongcodin, 25, a hairdresser. Schembri had met Generosa three days after arriving in Manila in 1981 and married her within a month.
Two days before he choked her to death, Schembri sent her a newspaper cutting of the killing of Rowena Sokol on which he wrote words of approval.
Inquiry demand
The CPCA, founded in 1991 to monitor violent deaths and disappearances of Filipina women in Australia, is calling on the federal government to establish an inquiry into the deaths and disappearances. The organisation grew out of a core group founded in Melbourne in 1989 following the killings of three Filipinas in Victoria in less than eight months.
CPCA national coordinator Melba Marginson said the number of violent deaths and disappearances of Filipina women was exceptionally alarming. She said only a royal commission could investigate the contributory issues.
"These issues [domestic violence and sex tours] we reckon would probably be very, very useful in terms of not only informing government bodies and non-government bodies but as well to change community attitudes towards Filipina women", she said.
The CPCA has the support of a group of feminist lawyers in Melbourne which is currently preparing a brief to be presented to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
Increasing problem
Marginson said that in most cases the women had been victims of domestic violence "before the final tragedy struck".
Although recognising that most Filipina-Australian marriages are successful, she believes there is growing evidence that a disproportionately high percentage of Filipinas who come to Australia on sponsorship arrangements become the victims of domestic violence.
Of the estimated 80,000 Filipinos living in Australia, about 20,000 are married to Australian men, making them the ethnic group with the highest number of intercultural marriages in the country.
According to a 1992 report commissioned by the federal Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs, social workers in South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales are reporting increasing cases of domestic violence, depression and loneliness among Filipinas married to Australian men and a growing demand by these women for their services.
A 1988 South Australian Department for Community Welfare study found that Filipinas were disproportionately represented among people accessing women's shelters. One Sydney social worker reports that she has seen 20 Filipinas a month since 1988 with serious marriage problems, mainly domestic violence.
In one case, a 78-year old man forbade his 48-year-old wife from going out by herself, even to the extent of not allowing her to go to the outside toilet. She was also not allowed to wear underwear in case she ran away.
In another case in outback New South Wales, a Filipina woman was chained inside a caravan every day her husband went to work and was fed kangaroo meat and dog food.
Marginson said she hoped a federal government inquiry into the deaths and disappearances would cover the related issues of domestic violence, sex tours and immigration laws.
"These are the three issues that always crop up whenever there are incidents that involve Filipina women", she said.
The CPCA is conducting a national workshop in Melbourne this month, funded by the Office of the Status of Women, to look at what needs to be done to protect and support Filipinas in violent relationships.
Melba Marginson said one of the issues to be discussed would be the need for a post-arrival orientation program for Filipino women, "so that we can continue monitoring their situation when they arrive here".
[First of three articles.]