At first glance Anita Jain looks and acts just like any other bright and confident 28-year-old woman. It's only when she pulls back her sleeves to reveal the deep, angry scars running along her wrists that you realise Anita's recent past has been anything but plain sailing.
For two years her husband beat her horrendously. So bad was the abuse that she was regularly hospitalised - on one occasion a nurse even found a footprint in the small of her back.
Helping any vulnerable woman escape from such a situation is depressingly difficult. But a particularly callous British immigration law means that, for people like Anita, finding a way out is even harder.
The problem is that although Anita, an Indian national, had come to Britain perfectly legally and was married to a British citizen she was forbidden from accessing any public money during her first two years in the country.
That meant she couldn't receive some of the vital benefits that help other women in her situation escape. Without housing benefits she was unable to access most refuges, without income support she was unable to feed herself or even get a room to escape her husband.
The rule is known as the "No Recourse" rule, and campaigners say it should be immediately suspended for victims of domestic and sexual abuse.
Anita was forbidden from accessing public funds simply because she entered the UK on a spousal visa. If you come to Britain on a student visa, a temporary work visa or a spousal visa then under the No Recourse rule you are not allowed to access public funds for the first two years. It's a sort of probationary test, a way of trying to reduce people abusing the benefits system but it also traps some of the most vulnerable women in the country in a vicious cycle of violence.
Anita first tried to escape from her husband in January 2007. After a particularly vicious beating she was locked in the bathroom by her husband. She decided to escape and jumped out of the window, injuring herself in the process.
She told me (in the near perfect English she's been practising) that a man found her sobbing at a nearby bus stop and took her to his neighbours, who were Asian. The police came round, took a statement and said they would be back tomorrow. In fact it took them two weeks to come back again. The family tried to get Anita into a women's refuge centre but because she was forbidden from accessing public funds most refuges are forced to say no and she couldn't get in anywhere.
She couldn't return to India because her parents would have disowned her and eventually she felt she could no longer be a burden to the kind family that took her in and decided to go back to her husband. It wasn't long before the beatings resumed. By September she was in hospital again with a broken cheekbone and a bleeding wrist from an attempted suicide bid.
Finally she was put in contact with the Southall Black Sisters - one of the few charities that still support women with no recourse to public funds (Refuge is another charity that does so). They took her in, helped her give another statement to the police and now her husband has been arrested and is awaiting trial.
Southall Black Sisters first started campaigning against No Recourse in 1992 and yesterday they were outside Westminster alongside a coalition of women's groups calling on the government to do more to help these vulnerable women access funds as soon as they possibly can.
They want the government to follow the lead of other countries who provide these women with access to funds and shelter.
In Austria any woman, irrespective of her immigration status, is entitled to access a refuge and living costs if she applies for an injunction, issues divorce proceedings on the basis of the violence or obtains a report from a social institution confirming she is a victim of domestic violence. In Canada, meanwhile, spouses automatically become permanent residents on arrival as there is no probationary period meaning they can immediately access shelter should their marriage become violent.
In Britain at present a woman who experiences abuse can apply for permanent residency during the two year probationary period if she can prove that she is a victim of domestic violence. But campaigners say it is incredibly difficult for any woman to provide evidence of domestic violence. For a woman who may not speak English very well and has been held a prisoner in her own home by her husband, or sometimes his extended family, it is close to impossible.
It's not just Asian women who suffer what Anita has. Campaigners say they have seen similar cases among Middle Eastern, African, Caribbean and, increasingly, Eastern European women.
Regardless of the immigration debate, surely it is our moral responsibility to provide any of these women who have entered the country legally (and even those who haven't) with the protection they need? They are not benefit fraudsters or cheats, they are desperately vulnerable people in need of help, and at the moment Britain turns its back on them.
(Photo: AP)
Yes, so what can we do about it?
Posted by: Mark_IV | Thursday, 24 April 2008 at 06:34 PM
Mark, the two organisations I've mentioned would be able to tell you more about what can be done. But one thing anyone can do is write to their local MP and ask them whether they support the abolition of No Recourse for victims of domestic abuse or not and if not, why not?
There are a number of cross parliamentary MPs that do support this campaign but if every MP was forced to to ask why vulnerable women in their own constituencies were being trapped in this cycle of violence I'm sure they'd move a hell of alot faster than they are now.
Posted by: Jerome Taylor | Thursday, 24 April 2008 at 06:53 PM
This is more to blame on the failing police system in place. Anyone who beats his wife should be arrested and thrown in jail. Once that had happened there would be no need to find new housing for this poor woman.
Posted by: Jared Lorz | Friday, 25 April 2008 at 10:11 AM
I have been living in the UK for 3 years after arriving on a fiance visa. Fortunately, I have a good marriage and a wonderful husband who would never abuse me, but before I passed my "probationary" period, I still found it stressful to be totally dependant on my husband for my right to stay in the country, particularly as someone who has always been independent and self-sufficient. To be forced to stay with someone who abuses you is horrible.
Something that is not mentioned in the article is that to pass your "probation" you have to prove that you and your spouse have been living in the same household continously for two years - by showing post sent to you both at the same address, etc., so these women don't even have the option of staying at someone else's home to escape the abuse.
I understand that the government wants to prevent sham marriages by ensuring that people who come to the UK due to marriage stay with their spouses for a reasonable amount of time, but someone should always have the option to leave their marriage without being punished for it. Nobody should feel forced to stay in an abusive relationshop.
Posted by: Mrs M | Saturday, 26 April 2008 at 09:12 PM
Jerome, thank you for bringing this to light. Domestic abuse is bad enough, but imagine someone who has come here in good faith, believing she was safe with her husband. Women like this are completely isolated and alone and it is disgusting that they are abandoned by our own government like this. Women's rights are so low on the agenda, the public have got to get involved and make the stuffed suits in Westminster take notice and act. It is really sickening how poor women like this lady mentioned - and other women like Rose whom Jerome wrote about fleeing violence from her own country - are treated. Yet, sickeningly, it seems the media is quite happy to devote pages and pages to self obsessed celebrity wannabees who talk endlessly about their affairs and pointless lives. Values are so skewered these days, it beggars belief. Women are given air time for having had breast implants and for their tacky, crass, foul mouthed reality shows. Or else they only exist to look like a piece of pretty fluff in magazines which is a one dimensional portrayal of women. How many people take an interest in lives which are so horrific, that people can't imagine what some women are going through? Who hears their voice? Abuse is happening right now and we have got to stop it.
Posted by: Liz | Tuesday, 06 May 2008 at 07:38 PM