First, I thank the committee for recognising coercive control; that is so important. I was just saying to Marsha Scott that, if a woman was asked to record the times that coercive control happened and the times that physical abuse took place, I am absolutely sure that we would see a large amount of coercive control happening, but we have not previously recognised coercive control—we always look for physical abuse and the bruises.
It does not matter what a woman’s culture or ethnicity is; we are dealing with gender-based violence. The perpetrators use the roles that we set for men and women. To assert his power, a man uses against a woman the role that society sets for a woman—to cook, clean, nurture and do all those things. We have to look at this first as gender-based violence; it does not matter what a woman’s culture or religion is or where she comes from.
All of us have to follow the legislation in this country, because we live in this country; we are not living in our country. I look at it as discrimination against black and minority ethnic women if the legislation is not followed.
I will raise two or three points about what happens to ethnic minority women under coercive control. When the woman is controlled, I would not say that there is blackmail, but the approach is more about the perpetrator telling her that if she does not do something—or does do it—he will harm her family abroad. That is not seen in the main stream, because most of the woman’s paternal family will live in her country. That fear is there.
Another thing that the perpetrator normally does is create rumours against the character of the woman or her female siblings. That will bring shame to the family and lead to honour-based violence. Sometimes men use that. When we talk about cultural things, that is what I would raise, but please do not look at the issue in that way; we should come back to gender-based violence.
Another thing that happens in BME communities and is not seen as much or at all in the main stream is dowry-related abuse, where there is constant demand from the perpetrator or his family members for the woman to bring in more money or expensive gifts from her parents. Sometimes, the parents are quite poor. They might have given some dowry at the beginning for the girl to get married and have a better life but, later, they do not have that kind of money. That is when things turn into physical abuse. I have not heard of any killings here but, in India and elsewhere, women are burned as part of dowry-related abuse, and sometimes they commit suicide. I look at that as murder, rather than suicide, because the woman has been forced into taking that action.
The bill will benefit ethnic minority women in another way. I do not know how many committee members know about the no recourse to public funds legislation and how it applies to domestic abuse, immigration status and the destitution domestic violence concession. If a woman is fleeing domestic abuse, she can apply under the destitution domestic violence concession, but the problem is that she has to evidence the domestic abuse and, when there is coercive control, she cannot produce enough evidence, because she has not told anybody what is happening to her. When she discloses to her closest relations, such as her mum or sisters, the abuse that has happened to her, that is seen as going back to the role of a woman and how society expects a woman to be—to cook and clean and all. For those reasons, her fears are dismissed. People say that that is her role and that her husband is just asking her to cook for him.
We have had cases where the husband wants the woman to stay size 10 all the time. The way in which he talks about that is, “It’s about your health. I want you to look pretty. I want you to wear these pretty clothes that I have brought for you.” At the beginning, the woman enjoys that, because she does not know what is happening, but the day when she is not feeling well or something and says no is when the physical abuse takes place. That takes us back to coercive control and how many times it happens, as well as physical abuse. If someone tells her mum, “He always buys stuff for me and wants me to dress up,” will the mum look at it as abuse? No. She will just say, “He loves you.” However, that is part of such abuse.
It is becoming difficult to evidence coercive control, so women are failing to get secure immigration status, which puts them at risk because, once they go down the destitution domestic violence concession route, they lose their current immigration status, which could come from a spouse visa. They are then supposed to be deported; they are supposed to leave. Can you see that that is like a carrot? There is this thing that women can do but, if it fails, they are in more trouble than before.