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PA Media<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nWhen Harpreet agreed to an arranged marriage in India, she was a confident, happy and ambitious young woman. <\/p>\n But the new life she was promised with her husband in the West Midlands never materialised. <\/p>\n Instead, she said she found herself “living in a jail” of his making \u2013 and on the receiving end of a sustained campaign of violence that left her repeatedly in fear for her life.<\/p>\n “He tried to kill me [multiple] times. He strangled my neck and hit me on the wall and my breath stopped. I felt like ‘I’m going to die now’, it’s my last.”<\/p>\n This story contains references to domestic abuse and suicide. If you are affected by any of the issues raised, help and support is available via <\/b><\/i>BBC Action Line.<\/b><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Harpreet, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, said she not only suffered physical abuse by her husband but emotional and sexual too.<\/p>\n In addition, she said she also experienced financial abuse from both her spouse and in-laws, who refused to let her work.<\/p>\n For six years, Harpreet said she was subjected to coercive control. She claimed that even when he started to hit their child, she felt powerless because she was on a spousal visa and he threatened to send her back to her home country if she told the police.<\/p>\n The fear of deportation is a position thousands of abused women find themselves in, according to The Haven Wolverhampton<\/a>.<\/p>\n The government told the BBC it was working “at pace” to review issues impacting migrant victims of sexual and domestic abuse.<\/p>\n But Harpreet’s story is one the domestic violence charity has seen time and time again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Harpreet was studying at college when her husband’s family approached her parents to ask for her hand in marriage. <\/p>\n Their engagement was happy and after they married, she was told she could continue her education when they moved to England.<\/p>\n Instead, she said the abuse started immediately.<\/p>\n “Within two days, everything changed,” Harpreet told the BBC through a Punjabi interpreter.<\/p>\n She said she was given no food or clothes and felt like she was “living in a jail”.<\/p>\n “I can’t go outside, I can’t even talk with my family, no friends, just living in that house.<\/p>\n “Two years, same routine, from 4am to 10pm, I worked like a maid. Even sometimes my hands were bleeding but nobody stops me to stop work.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Instead of a reprieve when she became pregnant, Harpreet said the abuse only increased. <\/p>\n Then when they moved into their own home away from her in-laws, her husband hit her “continuously” because “nobody was watching”.<\/p>\n “Blood coming from my nose, my neck… And then after hitting me he’d start saying sorry to me,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Desperate to leave him, Harpreet researched divorce but was unable to proceed as she had no money of her own.<\/p>\n Unable to see a way out, she said she contemplated suicide but then her husband began targeting their child.<\/p>\n “From that day, I stopped thinking of him as my husband, I started thinking like he’s a stranger, he’s nobody to me now,” she said.<\/p>\n “How could somebody live with that monster?” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Eventually, Harpreet called the police and also told her child’s school about the abuse. She managed to escape after she was referred to The Haven, which helped get her to safety.<\/p>\n Set up in 1973, it supports women and children from all backgrounds who are vulnerable to domestic abuse and homelessness, and offers a range of services including emergency accommodation and support.<\/p>\n Its communications manager Jade Beddington said it was not uncommon for perpetrators of domestic violence to use their spouse’s immigration status as a “form of control”.<\/p>\n She said many women “go into hiding” due to deportation fears and the refuge had supported some who had lived in the UK for several years but didn’t know their own address.<\/p>\n “We’ve known cases where women are being threatened [with] murder by their families because they’ve left their husband,” she said.<\/p>\n “If this isn’t your home country, it can be very complex to escape the abuse.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Government guidelines<\/a> state survivors might be able to apply for permission to settle in the UK permanently if the relationship has broken down due to domestic violence or abuse.<\/p>\n Help might also be available for those who do not have enough money to support themselves or do not have a place to live.<\/p>\n In Harpreet’s case, The Haven supported her with changing her insecure immigration status.<\/p>\n‘I worked like a maid’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n‘He’s nobody to me now’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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The Haven<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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