‘No escape for abuse victims hit by high living costs’

LACK OF INCOME AND UNDERFUNDED SUPPORT SERVICES ARE MAIN HURDLES, SAY EXPERTS

THE cost of living crisis is making it more difficult for Asian domestic violence victims to leave an abusive partner, according to experts and charities.

Charity Women’s Aid revealed the economic squeeze is hitting the finances of support services for BAME women, which are already under-funded, they said.

A new survey by Women’s Aid found that 96 per cent of females who suffered abuse in the past year said their financial situation had been impacted.

And for 73 per cent of them, it prevented them from fleeing a violent relationship or made it much harder to do so.

Black, Asian and minoritisied survivors face additional barriers to accessing support, so any further obstacles will make it harder for them to flee and recover from abuse, said Women’s Aid policy and public affairs manager, Zainab Gulamali.

She told Eastern Eye: “Specialist services led by and for black, Asian and minoritised women are already critically underfunded, and these are now at further risk due to rising utility costs and financial difficulties for staff.

“We urge the government to provide an Emergency Support Fund for Survivors and discounts on energy bills to these domestic abuse services that provide lifesaving support to women and children.

“We also want to see the government providing ringfenced, sustainable funding for specialist domestic abuse services led by and for black, Asian and minoritised women to ensure they are able to meet the demand for their services and that no survivor is turned away.

“Women’s Aid will not rest until all survivors are offered the support they need to live a life free from abuse.”

Research also found that more than half of women living with an abusive person said their partners had used increased concerns about finances as a way to control them.

Meena Kumari is founder of the H.O.P.E (Helping Other People Everyday) training and consultancy firm and has worked with victims of domestic abuse for 17 years.

She said she has “found a number of barriers for survivors to not report [incidents] within Asian communities.”

Kumari told Eastern Eye: “We see Asian women facing additional barriers as a result of institutional racism, immigration laws, culture and religions and issues of the lack cultural competence by services, in particular. And a lack of staff diversity within frontline services. Such barriers, from a range of formal and informal resources, services and other mechanisms of support, serve to exacerbate feelings of fear, threat, isolation and powerlessness.

“For Asian women, the barriers are then further weaponised by perpetrators in order to extend their reign of terror and control over our victims that we support.”

Some 4.9 cent of people of Indian origin reported being victims of domestic abuse in 2019-2020, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.

The figure was 3.5 per cent among those of Pakistani origin and 1.4 per cent for people from a Bangladeshi background. Jo Sidhu QC is chair of the Criminal Bar Association.

He believes official figures hide the full truth about the extent of the problem.

Sidhu QC told Eastern Eye: “All victims feel trapped by the lack of money which stops them from escaping an abusive partner. But Asian women face a double hurdle because cultural pressures also force them to put up with violence just to protect the reputations of their families.

“In some communities, women are unable to earn an independent income so they are left at the mercy of their husbands who know their wives cannot leave. As a criminal barrister, I have seen dozens of cases where Asian women have suffered severe physical and mental harm, and are sometimes even murdered, by a controlling husband.

“The current economic crisis will sadly, but inevitably, mean that we will see more and more victims who are effectively imprisoned at home by men whose thinking and attitudes have no place in a modern society such as the UK”.

As part of the government’s Domestic Abuse Act, which came into force in July, victims of domestic abuse can be spared from being cross-examined by their alleged attackers in family and civil courts.

The government said it plans to invest over £230 million “and will seek to transform the whole of society’s response to prevent offending in the first place, support victims and pursue perpetrators, as well as to strengthen the necessary systems and processes to deliver these goals”.

Home secretary Priti Patel has reappointed Nicole Jacobs as Domestic Abuse Commissioner, whose second term begins in September and will run until September 2025.