Calls to British Sikh domestic abuse group more than double in pandemic

The Sikh Women’s Action Network (SWAN), based in the West Midlands, said domestic abuse was often “brushed under the carpet” by the wider community.

Campaigners said more needed to be done to help Sikh survivors of domestic abuse.

Calls during lockdown were up by 244%, with almost 60 families helped over the past year, SWAN said.

The organisation was formed in 2014 by a group of Sikh women who felt many issues including domestic violence, child sexual exploitation and alcohol abuse were being ignored in the community.

It cites forced marriage as a particular problem, with women often becoming totally isolated and losing their friends and family when they move to live with their husband.

In the first three quarters of 2019, the charity had helped 24 families around the UK, but, during the same period in 2020, it had helped 58 families.

Among those seeking help has been Simran (not her real name), who came to the UK from India when she was 24 after an arranged married to someone 10 years older.

The mother-of-two had no immediate family in this country. She suffered five years of abuse at the hands of her husband who beat and raped her after drinking excessively.

“I didn’t know about support services but thought that the only place I could get help was the police.

“Every time I told them, they’d let him go and he’d come back home, and his beatings and anger would get worse.”

Unable able to speak English, controlled and isolated, Simran said she had no way to escape.

Co-founder and executive director Narinder Kaur Kooner said: “Cases have risen so sharply because during the lockdown, many of the perpetrators have used victims as their human stress ball to take their anger out on them.”

See the full report, ‘Calls to Sikh domestic abuse group more than double in pandemic’ (BBC, 13 March 2021), here.

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