Sarah* remembers waking in the middle of the night to her ex-husband standing over her bed and thinking ‘he’s going to murder me’.
“I seriously felt that was the end of my life,” she told The Feed.
Despite Sarah taking out a restraining order against him, her ex had the keys to the apartment where she was living in Melbourne, as he owned the unit.
Shaking, Sarah told her ex to leave the apartment. Later, she said her phone lit up with text messages “full of abuse”.
“I called his mum and I said: ‘he makes me feel scared, he's going to kill me’ and she said, ‘Sarah, in our culture, if you want the man to love you and respect you, you’ve got to listen to him’.”
At the time, Sarah - who was born in a south Asian country - was a temporary visa holder who had moved to Australia for an arranged marriage.
Sarah initially arrived in Australia on a tourist visa. She said that for some time, her ex-husband refused to sponsor her on a spousal visa, leading her to feel uncertain about her future in the country.
Back in the country where she grew up, Sarah had a prestigious job and supportive family. But in Australia, she had no one.
“My ex-husband would say things like, ‘Do you know this is my country? Do you know you have no rights? You belong to a country where you are not even recognised.’”
“He’d say, ‘You're going to be in Australia on my terms and conditions’.”
Sarah said she was taught to live “under the feet” of her husband and so, at first, she brushed off racist remarks he made about the colour of her skin and the colour of her passport.
After one explosive fight, where she said her ex-husband tried to drive a car into her, Sarah left the house where they were both living and moved into the apartment.
“He told me if I wasn't going to get out of his way he was going to hit me [with the car]. I didn’t believe what he was saying,” she said.
“He charged. And if it wasn't for me moving, I would have been dead today.”
Culturally specific care
Before her ex-husband entered the apartment that night, Sarah had approached various domestic violence services for accommodation, but she said they were unable to help.
After living off packets of noodles for two weeks, Sarah approached one organisation for food. “Upon returning home, I found that half of those items were actually expired,” Sarah said.
But it wasn’t only the lack of resources that Sarah came up against. She felt that mainstream organisations she approached could not relate to her situation and cultural background.
“They weren't able to have an understanding as to why I couldn't go back [to my home country] because separation or divorce is a very common thing in Western countries,” she said.
But she said one organisation - Shakti Australia - really “understood what it meant for a woman of culture to be separated, divorced, or leave an abusive relationship.”
Shakti is a not-for-profit organisation that is wholly run and led by migrant and refugee women from Asian, African and Middle Eastern cultural backgrounds.
Unlike Queensland and NSW, Victoria has no culturally specific refuges for survivors of domestic and family violence.
While Shakti has a culturally specific refuge in New Zealand, it currently does not have the funding to provide this service in Australia.
Shakti did its best to help Sarah, providing her with psychological and legal support. And three months later, she found accommodation.
But still, the fear of living in that apartment has stayed with her.
“It left my mental wellbeing at its worst,” she said.
“I used to tremble and lock myself in the bathroom for hours and hours because my ex-husband still had the keys.”
Culturally specific refuges: ‘A gap in the system’
Hiba Casablanca, community engagement officer at Shakti, believes there are unique challenges facing survivors from Asian, African and Middle Eastern cultures such as underage marriage and dowry abuse.
A dowry generally refers to an exchange of money, property or gifts transferred by a woman’s family to her husband upon marriage, which can differ between cultures. is any act of coercion, violence or harassment associated with the giving or receiving of this.
“What we're trying to do is just reshape our cultural communities,” Ms Casablanca said.
“Just because these kinds of patriarchal concepts exist in our culture doesn't mean that they're inherent to our cultures.”
Ms Casablanca believes culturally specific refuges are “incredibly important” and valuable to survivors from refugee and migrant backgrounds.
“We're talking about an environment that's designed for your cultural needs, whether that be the food that you eat, or the prayers that you might want to perform, or the way that you organise your home life,” she said.
“Having bilingual support workers from our own cultural community embedded in the refuge means that there's always someone there 24-7 to support them.”
is the first refuge for women of Indian origin in Australia.
The house belongs to the Brisbane Southside Gurdwara (Sikh temple), and provides accommodation for up to 12 months for women and children experiencing domestic violence.
The manager of Sahara House, and social worker Jatinder Kaur Source: Supplied
“We have volunteers come in to help the women,” said social worker and manager of Sahara House, Jatinder Kaur.
“They are all bilingual, bicultural workers who speak the language.
“We connect them [the women] into all of the different services to help them with counselling, migration, legal advice, employment and training and health support”.
Ms Kaur said many migrant and refugee women who experience domestic violence struggle to navigate the mainstream system.
“Having a professional to speak in-language and understand culture, religion, the different family kinship systems. There are more layers within the multicultural communities,” she told The Feed.
Sahara House manager Jatinder Kaur with her team. Source: Supplied
“If you have professionals who are also from that same background, who understand it more intrinsically, they are able to provide a more culturally responsive service.”
The expansion of culturally specific refuges has also been backed by the leader of the Victorian Greens, Samantha Ratnam.
She said by having no culturally specific women’s refuges, Victoria has a “massive gap” in the system that leaves women at risk.
“Without refuges that understand the specific issues these women face – from immigration abuse and isolation to post-conflict trauma and violence – many won’t receive the tailored support they desperately need,” Ms Ratnam said.
“The government has already made a number of important investments in the family violence sector since the Royal Commission, but that money will only go so far if it’s leaving behind women from culturally diverse communities.”
Victorian Leader of the Greens Samantha Ratnam. Source: AAP
In 2018, the City of Whittlesea in Melbourne saw a cluster of suicides of South Asian women who’d experienced family violence.
Last September, a coroner instructed Victoria's Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to review the services that support these women.
In a statement to The Feed, Victoria’s Minister for Women and Prevention of Family Violence, Gabrielle Williams, said the state is “leading the nation” in its response to family violence, including for “culturally diverse Victorians.”
She said this effort has been backed by more than $3.5 billion in funding since The Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence, where the government committed to implementing .
Ms Williams said the government had established a Multicultural Communities Family Violence Working Group to “support organisations to advise on opportunities and gaps in the family violence service system.”
Victoria’s Minister for Women and Prevention of Family Violence, Gabrielle Williams. Source: AAP
“We are training workers across our broader justice, education, community and health services to identify and respond to family violence – including forms of violence disproportionately experienced by migrants and refugees such as forced marriage and dowry-related abuse,” she said.
Ms Williams also said the government was providing interpreter services and “reducing the barriers to accessing help with the roll-out of, assisting all Victorians regardless of background or migration status with tailored family violence support.”
Her statement comes as the on 75 new refuges and 200 affordable homes for women and children escaping domestic violence in the state.
‘A social housing crisis’
But while some are calling for Victoria to introduce culturally specific refuges, others argue the fundamental issue of a lack of housing and accommodation for all victim-survivors should be the main focus.
In its submission to the , family violence response centre Safe Steps said a lack of social housing or other affordable long-term housing creates “a major roadblock for victim-survivors moving on from crisis and transitional accommodation.”
The organisation said this, in turn, drives “the need for services to place women and children escaping family violence in inappropriate accommodation such as motels.”
The Victorian Royal Commission made specific recommendations to and move to a ‘core and cluster’ style of refuge accommodation.
This model provides onsite support services in a ‘core’ building and a ‘cluster’ of independent living units on one parcel of land.
Michal Morris, chief executive of inTouch - a multicultural centre against family violence - said the domestic violence system is not big enough to respond to the current need.
“There's not enough housing. And I think that's one of the most critical issues,” Ms Morris said.
“We need to keep these women safe and it's not relevant if it's physical harm or any other form of harm, [victim-survivors] are entitled to support.”
Last year, inTouch saw 100 women speaking over 90 languages. Ms Morris said half of inTouch’s clients are on some form of temporary visa and had been excluded from JobKeeper and JobSeeker during lockdown.
“We felt the demand go up and we think it’s because they didn’t have anything, they were doubly disadvantaged through lockdown,” Ms Morris said.
“I think there’s a lot we can do to support refuges to be more culturally responsive but I'm not convinced that we need a lot of ethno-specific or culturally specific refuges,” she said.
“Smaller communities may not want an ethnos-specific model because around the confidentiality and the safety. So you have to be quite large a community to safely have a refuge.”
Jocelyn Bignold, chief executive of McAuley Community Service for Women, said “refuges are quite a short term response and can only provide a response to a few people.”
This sometimes means that refuges have to make difficult decisions to turn away victim-survivors.
“They are having to make assessments based on very high-risk factors,” Ms Bignold said.
“Refuges are basically places of last resort, where we have to literally hide people away for their own safety.
“So the risk calculation being made might be whilst she might be eligible if she's not at risk of death, there is no space.”
For Sarah, who wasn’t able to find accommodation, staying in a culturally specific refuge would have made her feel safe.
“Shakti was the organisation that explained to me that you don’t have to come here with bruises or physical abuse and that emotional abuse is domestic violence,” she said.
“In my life, I had never heard words like domestic violence. In my culture, domestic violence is not considered emotional abuse.
“It was all new and they helped me, they educated me.”
When it comes to partner and spousal visas, sponsors can terminate an applicant’s application. However, if the visa holder is the victim of family or domestic violence, they may still be eligible for permanent residence.
Determined to make a future for herself in Australia, Sarah submitted evidence of her situation to the Immigration Department and was able to continue with her visa.
Now a permanent resident, Sarah said she’s “strong enough to know that this country is equally mine.”
“I stand strong today, I keep my head up and I walk with dignity without anybody telling me I am a victim because I've learned that I'm not a victim, I am a survivor.”
*Name changed to protect woman’s privacy.
If you or someone you know needs help, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit www.1800RESPECT.org.au.
You can also call MensLine Australia on 1300 789 978 Lifeline on 13 11 14 and Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467. In an emergency, call 000.
For more information on partner visas and domestic violence, visit the .
