Life a prison for abused women

Visa dependence, complicated family ties and ineligibility for welfare support keep some women in abusive relationships.

Yasmin Khan. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

One woman had a window of only minutes to meet a domestic violence support worker, at school drop-off time in a nearby park.

Her movements were being tracked by her husband’s live-in family, who would monitor the time she was away and check her car’s odometer.

Another woman’s marriage was being eroded by her visiting mother-in-law until she accepted advice to take out a restraining order. Other women reported being constantly kept pregnant.

Brisbane-based domestic abuse service Bangle, renamed this month from Eidfest Community Services, is helping women in distress from the Indian subcontinent.

“A lot of these women may be oblivious to the fact that they are actually being abused,” founder Yasmin Khan said yesterday.

“Then there are those women that know they are being abused but they’re reluctant to talk about it. A lot of it is around silence and shame and honour and family expectations, community expectations, societal expectations, ‘what’s the community going to say, what’s the family going to say?’.”

She was speaking after The Weekend Australian highlighted the barriers that some migrant women face in leaving violent and abusive relationships.

The women Ms Khan supports have diverse and complex problems involving visa dependence, complicated family relationships, ineligibility for government fin­ancial support and a lack of ­language skills.

“Each woman’s got a different set of reasons not to talk about it,” Ms Khan said.

Thevagy Radhakrishan, 54, was allegedly stabbed to death by her husband, Sandraseghram Radhakrishan, 58, at a home in Springfield Lakes, southwest of Brisbane, two weeks ago. The Sri Lankan couple had been in Australia for more than 10 years.

The Red Rose Foundation, of which Ms Khan is a director, is due next Friday to hold a vigil at Brisbane’s Parliament House to mark her death, and the separate stabbing death of 27-year-old ­Juanita Paul at the remote ­Aboriginal community of Kowanyama last month.

Paul’s partner, Lenfred Leighwayne Tommy, 29, has been charged with her murder.

Red Rose has been holding gatherings for murdered women for 10 years. “We’ve always been there with the same message — domestic ­violence is occurring, another person has died,” chief executive Betty Taylor said.

“Our motto is ‘Let’s change the ending’ and I believe we can.

“It’s a tragedy that these deaths are predictable and preventable — we can do something.”

Migrant and Aboriginal women faced extra challenges in getting support, Ms Taylor said.

“No one knows the possibility of lethality until it’s too late. Victims may think, ‘I can manage this’.

“If you are experiencing violence or being threatened, you need to reach out to the various services.”