Schoolteachers and counsellors are raising the alarm about a growing number of Australian girls being forced into child marriage.
One government child-welfare hotline has received more than 70 calls for help in the past two years.
Dr Eman Sharobeem knows firsthand the impact of forced marriage on girls.
She was forced to marry her cousin in Egypt when she was 15 years old.
"The impact is very visible, and many women already, in my generation and/or younger, would know it's not only the impact on the physical being of the woman but also the psychological and also the social being."
For 14 years, Dr Sharobeem endured a violent marriage, before finding herself widowed with two young sons at age 29.
She now works as director of the Immigrant Women's Health Service in western Sydney, as well as national community-engagement manager at SBS.
She says she is determined to improve the status of women and end the practice of forced marriage.
Dr Sharobeem is calling on religious leaders to educate their local communities that the practice is unacceptable.
"We really would like to see community leaders speaking to their communities. In most cases, those leaders will know about the situation or the kids before it happens, and we would like the intervention to happen from the ground."
The practice of forced child marriage was outlawed in Australia in 2013.
But a government-run child-protection line in New South Wales has received over 70 calls for help in the past two years.
State Family and Community Services Minister Brad Hazzard terms the practice barbaric and cruel and has called on the federal government to quickly establish emergency housing.
"What I'm being told by refuges, where these girls have to go to, is that they're getting a lot more that there simply are no places for at the moment. That's why we approached the federal government and said, 'We need help.' All states and territories probably have this problem."
Most of the tip-offs have come from teachers, counsellors and school principals.
The cases include a 14-year-old girl harming herself because her father had arranged for her to be married and a nine-year-old girl being forced to return to Pakistan to be married.
Mr Hazzard is calling on community leaders to speak up to help end forced marriage.
"The problem would appear to be a cultural problem. It is across a number of different cultural groups and particularly those from Africa, South-East Asia, the Arabic countries. It does present as an across-the-board situation. So, therefore, community leaders and religious leaders certainly should be speaking up and saying, 'This is not something we accept in 21st century Australia.'"
Laura Vidal is a social worker at the Salvation Army and works closely with young women affected by the issue.
She says there are many reasons why the practice persists.
"I guess the underlining reasons why the practice is in place is to curb social behaviour, to uphold cultural or family expectations. On the more extreme end, you also have people who are facilitating marriage for the purposes of immigration, as well as financial gain."
Australian Federal Police say they have investigated 69 incidents of forced marriage in the past financial year, more than double the previous year.
