A haven for South Asian Women

A family shelter in Whitby offers refuge for abused Muslim women

Jun 04, 2007 04:30 AM

Naheed Mustafa special to the star

Sara Shah sits in her near-empty apartment quietly studying her hands. With her long black braid and smooth, unlined face she seems much younger than her almost-40 years.

Sara (not her real name) moved here just a few weeks ago. There are no curtains, no showy knick-knacks. There's just a table and two shabby chairs. A handful of toys lines the floor along one wall.

Her 3-year-old son rides his tricycle in circles, the wheels thundering in the emptiness. Sara sends him to ride in the other room.

She takes a deep breath and continues with the story of the marriage she left just four months ago.

"For three years, it was like I was being burned alive – the nagging and complaining, the screaming and yelling. I started thinking there was something wrong with me. I was completely brainwashed. He used the dirtiest language in the house, but he only spoke to me that way. He only showed his anger to me. Other people would think he's the nicest person in the world."

Sara says, in the beginning, her husband was decent enough. But as time passed, he changed. By the time they immigrated to Canada four years ago from Pakistan, she was terrified of setting him off; after their son was born, the situation became unbearable. When she finally left her husband, she was a mere shadow of herself.

She says leaving was almost impossible but she did it to save her son.

"I thought he would end up mentally unbalanced and fearful and terrified or that he'd end up like his father. I thought to myself that I have a life in my hands to mould and I can't waste it. There's no excuse for that."

Sara and her son moved into the Muslim Welfare Shelter in Whitby. The home is run by another woman from Pakistan, Atiya Siddiquei. She's made it her mission to help women like Sara.

"When a South Asian woman in these circumstances ends up in a shelter, she feels ashamed," Siddiquei says. "She's terrified that people will come to know that she's left her husband.

"Part of the problem is that, in South Asian culture, there's a fear that if the marriage breaks down, the woman's family will suffer. If she has sisters, she's scared that her sisters won't get married because of the stigma."

Siddiquei says there's a persistent cultural belief that life after divorce is no kind of life at all. That's why when women encounter abuse, they often endure it.

"Women are under a lot of pressure culturally to make marriage work. Even for me. When I got married, my mother said to me that I now have to take care of my family and there's no way back to her home."

She says most of the residents come to the shelter when they have no options left.

The Muslim Welfare Shelter provides a six-week home for women and children irrespective of religious beliefs. Some 60 per cent of the residents at any given time are South Asian.

Since it opened in 1993, about 5,000 women and children have passed through its doors. In the last year alone, a little more than 500 women and their kids have called the shelter home. It has space for 39 people and is full most of the time.

Siddiquei says, because of the shelter's name, South Asian women – especially Muslims – are willing to take a chance and come. She says often the first thing many of these women want to do is call their husbands and tell them where they are. She has a hard time convincing them not to.

Residents generally do not have a lot of practical experience with living on their own. Many stay at the shelter feeling – and behaving – as though they're in jail. Siddiquei often has to remind them they're free to leave if they want to.

"When it comes to these women, we very much need to deal with the family," Siddiquei says.
"We try to understand the reality of the situation. We contact the family if we have permission and it's safe. We set up marriage counselling and legal advice. We take these women to their legal aid appointments ... If they're not going back home, we help them with housing."

Domestic violence is, of course, not restricted to South Asians. But community workers say it's incredibly difficult to get South Asian women talking. And community leaders simply don't speak out.

Nita Bawa, a Sikh, emigrated here from India almost two decades ago. She's the co-host of Asian Connections, a half-hour Punjabi/Hindi call-in show that airs Tuesday afternoons on Canadian Multicultural Radio, 101.3 FM. She talks regularly about domestic violence.

Bawa says women stay in abusive marriages for many reasons but the common thread is the stigma.

"In general, they don't want to leave the home, they don't want to break up the marriage and they're very afraid of what other people will say. They just keep hoping it will stop."
Bawa says there are many subjects in the community that are taboo. "They are just swept under the carpet ... domestic violence is the same. Everyone knows it's going on but no one talks about it."

Back in Don Mills, Sara Shah is slowly piecing her life together. Her husband threw out everything that belonged to her and their son, so she needs to replace what she's lost. But her concerns are not just material.

"In our culture, we're not raised to have self-esteem," she says. "Thinking about yourself or your own needs is seen as selfish. Everything you do must be for others.

``I realize now that, even though there was a side of me that was weak, that put up with the abuse and tolerated it, there is a side of me that is strong, that helped me overcome my situation and survive."

In the kitchen of the Muslim Welfare Shelter for Women in Whitby, Jahyana, 3, and her mom Joanne prepare lunch with staff member Sherine.