[Note: Real names and identifiable personal details have been altered to protect the privacy of the participants in this research.]
Safia still had the colour of wedding henna on her hands when her husband told her that his family had forced him to marry her, and that he would never accept her as his wife. Safia said:
I remember I fell on the floor because I felt like my knees can’t bear me anymore. I was shaking. As if the floor was vanished from under my feet. I realised why he didn’t touch me yet. Why he was avoiding me. Why he was so angry with me all the time since the wedding.
She called one of her brothers, a key decision-maker in her natal family, to seek his permission to return. However, before Safia could properly explain the reason for her wanting to go back to her natal family, her brother reacted furiously, berating her over the phone. She was told that once a girl is married, that’s her fate for the remainder of her life:
He didn’t even let me finish my sentence. He got very angry and started scolding me over the phone. He said it was a mistake of the family to let me study too much! I have become arrogant and picky. How dare me saying I’ll not continue with this marriage just after few days? The colour of henna from my hand is still not gone, what kind of bad and shameless girl I am to talk about leaving the marriage? Do I want to bring shame for the family? He was very angry. Even my husband could listen to him screaming over the phone.
Safia immediately realised that her family would never accept her back. Following the call, her husband cruelly taunted her and mocked her, saying:“Now no matter what I do to you, you have nowhere to go. Such disgusting creature you are! It’s not only me, even your own family doesn’t want you. Pity!” Thus began Safia’s violent ordeal, which escalated after migration to Australia.During nearly two decades of an abusive marriage, Safia endured regular beatings in the presence of her young children and suffered extreme financial abuse. There were occasions when her husband would stop buying groceries and food as punishment, leaving Safia and her children to go hungry for a day or two until she begged for his forgiveness and would agree to his demands.
Like Safia, when Kobita disclosed to her natal family the physical and financial abuse she started to face shortly after migrating to Australia, they strongly rejected the possibility of her return. They insistedthat she must “be patient” and live according to her husband’s wishes.
The complicity of natal families
When a woman seeks refuge from an abusive relationship by reaching out to her primary support network — her natal family — their response can critically influence her ability to escape from the situation. In my ongoing PhD research on spousal financial abuse among Bangladeshi migrant Muslim women in Australia, the narratives of participants like Safia and Kobita uncover a deeply ingrained yet often overlooked factor influencing the decision of abused migrant women to remain in abusive relationships. This factor is the complicity of their natal family in perpetuating the abuse by prioritising social reputation or family honour above the well-being of the victim.
This is not unique to Bangladeshi migrant women in Australia.Research on intimate partner violence in Tanzaniafound that, while women’s natal relatives were willing to provide support, theystrongly encouraged the women to maintain their abusive marriages. In some cases, as I observed in my research, parents witness their daughter being abused firsthand while visiting her in Australia, yet still leave her alone with her abusive husband and often hastily return to Bangladesh.
When Nabila’s parents visited her for the first time, her husband was not only abusive to her in front of them, he was also verbally abusive to her parents. Despite having a visa for six months, her parents hastily returned within five weeks, leaving Nabila behind and advising her to be patient. Similarly, Humaira’s parents left in a hurry when her husband asked them to take Humaira back to Bangladesh with them.
Other research on South Asian migrant Muslim women likewise confirms that, instead of providing refuge or assistance,the natal family of abused women may encourage the victims to stay in the abusive relationships to avoid societal shame, and to protect family honour, thereby furthering their sufferings.When Faiza was forcibly sent back to Bangladesh by her then abusive husband, her parents were more devastated by her return than by the fact she had endured abuse. Faiza felt profoundly abandoned. Her parents took no action to intervene, even as her in-laws forced her to attend a shalish (informal conflict resolution meeting by family and community members), insulted and rebuked her in front of everyone, and send her back to Australia, and thus into harm’s way. As Faiza recounted, her parents “didn’t want my marriage to fail at any cost”.
Frequently, the withdrawal of support by the natal family leaves the victim devastated and despairing. In between her tears, Roji shared with me how she felt after her parents did not come forward to help stop the spousal abuse she was experiencing:
I’m not the kind of person who can be slapped and let it go. But I also knew that my parents wouldn’t be able to do anything. I had previously told them about ongoing abuses, but they couldn’t do anything then. So, I felt completely alone in this abusive relationship in [Australia]. It was entirely my fight to endure, all alone, and I only turned 20 that year.
In Bangladeshi families, both at home and abroad, daughters are mostly perceived as economic and social burdens, while sons are viewed as future providers and caretakers of their parents. This bias deeply affects the lives of migrant Bangladeshi women in Australia.Nupur shared that during her mother’s pregnancy, the entire family, including her maternal grandparents, anticipated a son and were deeply disappointed when a daughter was born.
This entrenched view of women as liabilities led many participants in my research to surrender to familial pressures, consenting to marriages with older migrant men who perceived as economically stable, with age differences of up to 17 years.Ayesha told me:
These men can do whatever they want to do with their wives only because they have an Australian passport. In Bangladesh, a man who has a foreign passport is always in high demand in the marriage market, no matter what he does in that foreign country, no matter what his age is. Having a passport gives him a blank check in the marriage market.
The urgency to relieve the liability of daughters compels such haste that often the groom’s family is not thoroughly vetted, out of fear that any inquiry might offend them. Many participants in my research recounted that once a marriage proposal was received from Bangladeshi man living in Australia, the girls were hurriedly married off within two days to one week for perceived economic benefits without considering compatibility, potentially leading them to be more vulnerable to spousal family and financial abuse. In instances where such abuse occurs, the women’s natal families often refuse to offer support or allow them to return.
Use and misuse of religious narratives
Are shame and social prestige the sole reasons why many migrant women’s natal families refuse to support them in leaving their abusive relationships? Ruma, another participant, strongly disagreed. In Ruma’s case, her husband was not only abusing her physically, sexually, financially, and emotionally — and not only was he involved with extra-marital relationships with a few other women. He also often physically hurt their children.
At this point, Ruma almost begged the local Bangladeshi community guardians — whom she respectfully referred to as “uncles and aunties”, including two uncles who were members of the local mosque committee — to help her leave her husband. Here, “help” means securing permission so that the community would not ostracise her after she exited the abusive relationship. But she was rebuked for trying to “break” her marriage. Ruma recounted:
They saidI must give him another chance. A good Muslim wife should give her husband as many chances as he needs to become righteous.
Studies on migrant Muslim women in Australia present similar findings where victims felt that religion had a detrimental effect on their ability to get assistance.Other research identifies certain religious beliefs as barriers to the reporting of abuse.
Most participants in my research who experienced abuse and were asked if they had considered leaving the abusive relationship emphasised that once a woman is married, she is not permitted to leave that marriage — whether religiously or culturally.Marriage is characterised as a knot that can never be untied. Although Islam is the only Abrahamic religion that allows divorce,Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), whichwas codified around the ninth and tenth centuries,granted men the provision to divorce their wives without cause, whilea woman could seek divorce through a court for only four specific reasons. Even then, however, if the court agrees to initiate her divorce, she forfeits all her financial rights. While one of these four reasons — namely, systematic maltreatment — offers limited opportunity for abused women to pursue legal avenues to exit an abusive relationship, the perception of marriage as the ultimate destination for a woman persists within Bangladeshi community.
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There is a layer of historical complexity behind such prevailing discriminatory attitudes towards women. Bangladesh is located within Southeast Asia, whereHinduism has a deep-rooted relationship with local customs and traditions.With the arrival of Islam, the general population of converted Muslims incorporated many of those local customs, rituals, and beliefs into their newly adopted faith. The newly established Muslim rule did little to change the existing social gender structure, wherein women were already subjected to severe segregation and subordination. Even today,Bangladeshi Hindu women cannot divorce because Hinduism does not allow women to cease their marital relationship. Muslims’ view of womanhood, and their general treatment of women, could not resist these local Hindu influences. The Muslim religious narratives and perceptionsgradually developed in a manner unfriendly to women and continued to legitimate unequal rights and discriminatory treatment.
Against this historical backdrop, women are often confined to familial roles. The sole purpose of their function in society is defined as maintaining the home and taking care of family members. Any deviation in these roles is often seen asa personal failure on the part of the wife, which in turn affect the decision of Bangladeshi women to leaving an abusive relationship, even in her post-migration life.
When Bokul objected to her husband’s extreme financial abuse — wherein she had been pleading with him for several years to provide her with at least twenty dollars a week as pocket money — local community members who were highly respected for their religiosity advised her to be patient like the wife of the prophet Ayuub. It is narrated that the prophet Ayuub’s wife cared for him for 90 years when he was so sick that his body flesh smelled, and all other people left him in disgust. Bokul was advised that a Muslim wife should exhibit similar patience and endurance.
Such highly patriarchal values are thenintegrated into the social practice of religion and have severe consequences for Bangladeshi Muslim women.Negotiating thegender boundaries thatassign women subordinate roles within broader South Asian migrant communities,both in their home and host countries, is a major challenge for the women in this demographic when it comes to seeking assistance or leaving an abusive relationship.
When the struggle of victims extends beyond their spouses
In a context in whichpatriarchal social structures and male-dominated attitudes persist,if an abused migrant wife decides to leave she has to confront not only her husband but also the broader community. Zakira, a participant in my research who left her husband after decade-long sexual and financial abuse, stressed that, in the Bangladeshi Muslim community in Australia, “the widows are way better off than divorcees”. Comparing herself with another woman who recently became widow, Zakira said:
The difference between her and me is that she is a widow, and I am a divorcee. When she calls someone for help, [other Bangladeshi people from the community] come running. But if I need any help, even if I request directly, people make excuses. I have lost all my friends from the community, every single one of them abandoned me. I had to make new friends who are not Bangladeshi.
The community typically views martial breakdown as a moral failing on the part of the husband but asserts that a wife must remain patient and forgiving. Instead of demanding better provisions, a wife is expected to make do with whatever her husband provides and is labelled “greedy” otherwise. Abused women are often advised to “submit more to Allah” and to “be patient”. In some instances, they are even given suggestions on how to better cope with the abuse, perpetuating the notion thatit is the wife’s responsibility to “work through difficulties in a relationship”, which includes enduring violence and abuse.When Nilufar was seriously contemplating leaving the abusive relationship, she said:
[Family friends in the community] were telling me that a wife in our society needs a husband, particularly in this foreign land, even if it’s just for show, like a signboard. Without a husband, a wife is an easy target for everyone to flirt with. They said a divorced woman is like a sweet left out in the open, with every flies out there trying to take a bite.
Following the immense community pressure, threats of ostracism by community members, along with her natal family’s complete withdrawal of support, Nilufar later gave up her struggle to leave the abusive relationship.
Like Nilufar,for many migrant wives who wish to leave an abusive relationship, spousal abuse often quickly turns into community abuse. When Ayesha finally managed to call the police one day, after enduring many years of violent physical abuse, it was the day her husband choked her to the point where she struggled to breathe. However, her husband promptly informed the community leaders, who hurriedly came to their home and chastised Ayesha to the extent of saying: “A well-mannered girl from a good family never calls the police. What kind of family do you come from?” While the straightforward translation of what the male community leaders were telling her might seem simply annoying, in the Bangla language it carried a deeply derogatory implication that only a woman akin to a prostitute, coming from a very low familial background, would approach to the police. Succumbing to community pressure, Ayesha was compelled to immediately withdraw her police complaint against her husband.
The research on family and financial abuse most commonly approaches the problem as spousal. For many migrant Muslim women,the problem is communal.The pressure not to disclose violence to the outside world, minimisation, and denial of problematic behaviours by the communityoften dissuades women in this demographic from reporting abuse. This is not surprising given that migrant women who seek assistance from outside of their own communityare often considered to be betraying their own culture.Consequently, many migrant women refrain from seeking help altogether, fearingcommunity rejection or stigmatisation.
In Kajol’s experience, community elders urged her to forgive her abusive husband multiple times, claiming forgiveness to be a foundational characteristic of a “good Muslim wife”. Kajol was later accused by local male community members of being the possible cause of her husband’s abusive behaviour. They arranged shalish in her house and accused her of failing in her wifely duties. These male community members then assigned their wives to investigate whether Kajol was meeting her husband’s physical demands whenever and however he desired, thereby fulfilling her role as a “good wife” should.
Stories of resistance and escape
It must be pointed out, however, that the persistence of certain gender-biased practices within a migrant community does not imply that the community itself is regressive. The extent to whichmigrant women experience violence as compared to non-migrant groups is unclear. Research conducted on the marital violence against overseas-born women in Australia,based on 800 surveys and 21 survivor stories, concluded that there is no evidence to suggest that domestic violence is more prevalent in immigrant communities.
Nonetheless, certain ethnic or migration-related factors can render migrant women uniquely vulnerable to violence. Roji’s case serves as a classic example of the vulnerabilities experienced by migrant women.
Soon after turning nineteen, Roji was married to a Bangladeshi man living in Australia who was eleven years older than her. Her family deemed him to be a financially stable groom. Emotionally coerced by her natal family, she had to consent to the marriage — her relatives repeatedly promised her that this marriage would financially secure not only her own future, but that of her other siblings. Her younger sister jokingly said that if Roji fails to be a responsible daughter of the family and disagree to marry the man, she would marry him instead.
A year later, upon migrating to Australia on a dependent visa, she found herself subjected to extreme domestic servitude and financial abuse. Her husband manipulated her to overwork at multiple jobs, with all her earnings deposited into his account. She was never allowed to spend any money without his permission. When she could not bear the abuse anymore and reached out to her natal family for support, they advised her to “be patient”, fearing the scandal that would ensue from leaving the marriage. As the abuse escalated to sexual and physical violence, one day, fearing for her and her child’s safety, she fled the house and sought help from the police.
This decision to leave involved many previous attempts, sleepless nights spent planning, and the constant fear of being caught by her husband. With secret help from a neighbouring woman, she ultimately gathered the courage to escape the abusive relationship. As Roji fled to the police station, Mala discreetly contacted the police one night when her husband threatened to “finish her off once and for all”. Police apprehended her husband after obtaining concrete evidence of threats against Mala and her children. Prior to this, Mala had been hospitalised several times due to severe beatings, which resulted in broken bones. Each time, under pressure from her natal family and members of the local Bangladeshi community in Australia, Mala found herself compelled to bear the blame herself and was told made up stories to healthcare professionals and law enforcement officers to conceal the beatings.
Just as there are many stories of abuse, there are also numerous stories of resistance. Fatima, another participant in my study who has been involved with voluntary community service for more than fifteen years, shared her observation of resistance in the lives of the Bangladeshi migrant women:
I have a very busy social life as I love to help other people, and I see a lot of women’s lives from the inside. Many husbands share no money at all with their wives. The wives simply do not know how much their husbands earn. Some of these women try to earn money from their house. Their husbands won’t allow them to work outside. The daily schedule of taking care of children and the house doesn’t make things easy for them. Some of these women try to make money through food catering, in-house clothing business, clothing alteration, or teaching Arabic and religious education to small children. These are the money that they earn. Oftentimes they do this without their husband’s knowledge.
These stories of resistance demonstrate that migrant Muslim women are individuals, embodying strength and resilience that transcend the simplistic labels often imposed by their gender, cultural, or religious backgrounds. Despite facing demography-specific barriers, these women assert their agency. Their narratives signify a subtle yet powerful form of everyday resistance, wherein they negotiate autonomy and self-reliance in the face of restrictive roles, thereby redefining the perception of migrant Muslim women within their communities.
Nupur, who was first married at the age of 19, not by force but by her own choice, survived sexual, physical, and financial abuse by her ex-husband while giving birth to her first child. She divorced that abusive husband, built herself a high-earning career in a managerial position, married again, and had more children. When I asked her why she participated in my research, she smiled and said: “I wanted you to hear the story of strong women like me. There are many others like me in the community who resist and prevail. Without our story, your research will remain incomplete.” I agree. Indeed, the tapestry of Bangladeshi migrant Muslim women’s living experiences remains unfinished without their stories of resilience — each narrative a vital thread in the broader pattern of their enduring spirit.
Farjana Mahbuba is a researcher in theInstitute for Humanities and Social Sciences at Australian Catholic University, where she studies financial abuse among Bangladeshi migrant Muslim women in Australia.
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