My name is S***, I am a 36-year-old from Morocco. I had an arranged marriage in 2010 to M*** and joined him in the UK in 2011 on a spouse visa. I have 2 children in primary school.
I am an educated woman but my husband was always controlling me. He was abusing me for many years, I thought that I have to be patient and bear with his abusive behaviour for my children and my family back home as they were forcing me to stay with him and if I asked for a divorce I would bring shame on them.
M***** has been very controlling and jealous throughout our relationship. My life since moving to the UK has been incredibly limited and I have felt very isolated. My daily life starts with dropping my children to school, I had no right to socialise and talk with mums, he was counting the time that I spent walking to school and coming back, if I was 5 minutes late, he would call me and use bad words like whore and say that I am looking for men so I was running back home. M***** didn’t allow me to enter ESOL courses and learn English. Financially he was very controlling; I didn’t have a right to spend money out of his plan.
I called the police once following an argument and I hang up before speaking. He was abusing me physically but I was scared to report him. When he knew that I rang 999 he started to hit himself and took photos saying that I abused him. I didn’t understand why he was doing that but later I knew. The police followed the call and they came. My aim from that call was just to warn and scare him to reduce his abusive behaviour but M***** changed the case totally, he showed the photos to the police and this ended up with me getting arrested, but charges were dropped.
M***** took advantage of the situation where he has better English; he was able to talk to the police more easily which gave him more control in order to make me look bad. Since that incident I was scared that if I did not obey him he would become more aggressive. He always intimidated me by threatening to take my children away from me and returning them to Morocco.
My friend gave me KMEWO’s number, I contacted them and since then my life has been changed. They referred my case to children social service which helped a lot to change some of my husband’s behaviour.
Identified needs:
- Risk Assessment & Safety planning
- Discuss non molestation order
- Children social service involvement
- Housing option to add her name to the tenancy agreement or refuge option
- Counselling in her native language –Arabic
- Refer her for our ESOL and child care course
Outcomes:
- Risk Assessment completed-High Risk, referred to MARAC
- Planned for personal safety and support
- Referral to Children Social Service
- Attend solicitor’s appointment to discuss Non Molestation Order and legal aid option
- Referred and started her counselling in Arabic language
- Started ESOL and Child Care courses
- Emotional support and confidence building by attending self-care groups
- Started volunteer work