My experience of abuse and silence within my Sikh in-laws’ family

[TheGoldHare]

Sikh Men / Families

I write this out of fear of what is being covered up.

The absolutely devastating murder of Henry Nowak utterly broke my heart. To know it was a Sikh man and members of his family allegedly trying to cover it up frightened me to my core.

I say this to bring awareness to something within parts of the Sikh community that I believe is very well hidden and deliberately covered up.

I married a Sikh man over 15 years ago. I am a non-Sikh woman. I was subjected to years of mental and physical abuse, including whilst pregnant with my children. What made it worse was that his family were aware of what was happening. We lived with them, yet they did not intervene. In fact, they subjected me to abuse themselves by shaming me and insisting it was my fault.

I eventually fled with my children after fearing I would be killed in that house. Not once did they try to help me, even when they knew I was suffering.

This was my experience. I experienced denial, secrecy and minimisation. The abuse was protected rather than confronted, and family loyalty came before my safety.

I am sharing this because I believe these experiences are often hidden and victims are too frequently silenced.

There are lots of threads like this on mumsnet, from abused women, whose husbands abuse them and they’ve said the families know and do nothing to help. Of, if they didn’t know, they blamed her when it came out or cut her off and sided with him. There was one whose own parents actually sided with her ex husband because she divorced him, and he was invited to her sister’s wedding so she chose not to go and it was another thing her own family punished her for.

One if the rest questions on all of those threads is usually “is there a cultural issue going on?” And the answer is usually no. So… this isn’t a Sikh issue. This is a violent man issue, from families who will side with them. And it is remarkably common. I think it’s been quite widely reported that some of the biggest offenders of domestic abuse are actually police officers, and British police still ignore it an awful lot.

I’m very sorry you were another victim of domestic abuse, but very glad that you survived it. Just not sure how relevant this is to the Sikh people specifically.

@SnappyQuoterI think it the poster is looking at the angle of how the families have behaved , very willing to protect the perpetrators despite them committing the highest morally wrong crimes.

And unfortunately, that’s very common. I worked for a mental health charity in Glasgow. It’s very common. And from years of threads in here, it’s very common. Families accept it. Or hush it up. Or ignore it.

If this is a systemic issue in Sikh households then a spotlight needs to be shone on that. But I think it’s really a violent man issue with too many families simply accepting it, because as a society, we still don’t see domestic abuse as all that bad if it’s inconvenient for the family.

I do believe this is a cultural issue within the Sikh community - I can speak from my own experiences as well as from being within that community for over 15 years and I have seen how women are treated and degraded, but it’s is hidden from the outside world in order to retain a certain image that we are falsely led to believe as these people with deep morals rooted to their religion which I strongly disagree with.

There are mothers who look after the home, children, cook and clean yet are not allowed any freedom outside of the home and have to ask for permission to leave the house or for money - I would equate that to modern day slavery.

I know of wide networks of family commiting fraud in benefits, social housing, tax evasion etc. I believe that they get away with this as we have become so ignorant as to not believe they could do no wrong.

I struggle when people excuse cultural groups and say it’s a one of or can’t be used to tarnish a whole group - this is what they cling on to as it means they get away with the most inhumane things.