People only saw the big house and the flash cars sitting on our front drive.. A Ferrari, Mercedes, a Porsche. No-one saw the violence and how badly the girls were being treated, because my family wanted it covered up that they believed men were superior and us girls needed to be made to ‘know our place.’ People would never have guessed my parents divorced under the strain of greed and lies.
My story starts in a little town in the north east of England called Yarm. I spent the first part of my childhood in Yarm, but we later moved down to the south coast, to a town called Bexhill-On-Sea. Both places were lovely, but very different, and later on we moved to Essex, right on the outskirts of London.
From a young age I realised that my family wasn’t what you would call ‘normal.’ At about 9 years old I was moved out of the mixed local primary I had been going to and into an all girls school.
I was told it was being moved because they cared about me and it was for my education, but I noticed strange little things happening and even though I was still young I knew something was wrong. I was being stopped from going on most school trips, and my mother started insisting that I cover up more. It wasn’t what I was seeing happening to the other girls around me, but I was a shy, quiet girl back then, so although I was unhappy I would keep it bottled up and to myself. I was a dreamer, I loved being outside but as I grew older I realised a point was being made of putting me ‘in my place.’ I had a brother who was two years younger than I was and he was being given the freedom and opportunities I would long for, and being taught he was superior to me and ‘worth’ more. I was told in no uncertain terms one day by my Mum that I was ‘worth half’ literally what he was and that as a female I would be more likely to end up in Hell. She tried to justify this by using skewed interpretations of‘religion and culture.
I couldn’t believe the things I was hearing. I started to fall apart. I’d been a pretty good student up till then but my dreams it seemed were over, my hopes for the future gone. I was supposed to be prepared for a lifestyle befitting my traditional culture and what she wanted. When school was over many of us had work experience arranged before we started sixth form. Mine had been arranged with a firm of architects. In my head I hovered between the idea of being an architect, a lawyer or a journalist. It makes me laugh now as these careers are so different but I was young and I gravitated towards all those things. My grades at school meant my teachers had been supportive of me going forward down any one of those paths, I just wasn’t sure which. The first morning I had laid out my clothes ready for my week of work experience, but when Mum came in and saw a knee length skirt she said she thought it wasn’t ‘decent’ and I needed to cover up more. Things were clearly about to get worse..
I remember crying most days through sixth form, but only when nobody was around. No-one saw my tears until one day I was called into the principal’s office and couldn’t hold them in anymore. As they began streaming she asked if I‘d like to see the counsellor. I realised the college counsellor knew my Mum and I didn’t have anywhere else to turn so I carried on holding things in as life got more difficult at home.
Up until the age of 16 or so I’d been closeted I guess by my school, but now I had left it was much easier for Mum to take far more control. She monitored what I was wearing, who I spoke to and would even listen in to conversations if I was using the phone. I once caught her trying to follow me in the car as I walked down the road at around three in the afternoon. After a couple of attempts at trying to go out in the evenings with friends with the help of my Dad that was over too. I was told I should not be out once I’d come home from sixth form, not allowed to learn to drive without her express permission because I’d have ‘too much freedom.‘ I was forbidden to get into a driving instructor’s car to have a lesson after Dad had helped me book., bluntly being told ‘no, you’re not going.’ Another day there was a bizarre interrogation by her asking if I let boys ever ‘touch’ me, which ended up with her saying if anyone was ever interested in me it would only be to use me as I was apparently so awful. I would try and doll myself up believing her when she’d call me ugly, sometimes even in front of guests. I think now she was trying to break down my self esteem so I’d be easier to marry off. At seventeen and eighteen as my friends were dealing with their UCAS forms and getting ready for university Mum brought up the subject of marriage
I didn’t think much of myself. My confidence was being stripped away. As well as my movements being restricted I was told I wouldn’t be allowed a television. She didn’t want me being under any ‘influence’ she couldn’t control I guess, but I got myself one anyway, and she tried to confiscate it, with Dad bringing it back to me. My freedom, my movements, were so curtailed, was I supposed to just sit in my room on my own all day only doing the activities she approved of? It didn’t seem to matter that my brother would be given the newest games consoles, clothes, whatever he wanted and was allowed to come and go as he liked. He had to be kept happy, because he was ‘superior’ to me, and I was meant to simply accept it. He liked the status quo and was never going to point it out. As time went by in fact he would help my mum enforce the sexism.
There were a few times I did try and stand my ground, but I would be shot down and ‘taught a lesson.’ My brother gave me a beating so bad once, whilst my mother watched, that I had to leave, I had to run for my life. Dad had been present when it happened as well and gotten upset but didn’t want to rock the boat. Sons in our culture held an eievated position in the family and were meant to help ‘control’ the daughters. All the promise and dreams I had from my schooldays began to dissipate. I withdrew into myself and became a shell of a person. Dad was heartbroken by what was happening to me, but was a quiet passive person by nature. He knew what was happening was wrong but I guess he just hoped things would get better.
**What he failed to realise, or didn’t want to admit to himself perhaps, was that when you let bullies get away with things there is usually more to come** and there would be cover ups and lies to ‘help’ them, their behaviour would get worse, leading to more family drama, tears and mess with growing egos, thinking they could get away with anything. That was the first incidence of violence but it definitely wasn’t the last.
My brother, who was never very smart, was expected to study medicine to follow in my father’s footsteps. I remember Mum being furious when a teacher had said he wasn’t really ‘doctor material.‘ So when he failed to get into university the first time, and then again, she began to freak out, talking about sending him to Eastern Europe to study as a last resort, to get him into medical school and working as a doctor through the back door.. ‘Luckily’ in the end he did end up getting a place through clearing and moved up to Sheffield University to study. I had been forbidden from leaving home for my studies, and where I’d been accepted was two hours away, but by this point my mind was an absolute mess anyway.
I was being denied the opportunities a male was told would be his and not once had he stood up for me or said we should be equals. On the contrary he would back Mum up and tell relatives as the only male child on my father’s side everything needed to be passed onto him. He had started telling people that everything my (very successful) Grandad had had would end up being his..and this amounted to millions.. My Grandad had grown up poor, but begun buying land when it was dirt cheap and no-one else was thinking of it, later being able to sell it and make large profits when developers came along and wanted to build on it.. My brother was now claiming it should all be his, with my Mum backing him up, even though we had cousins, but they were female (ie the ‘wrong’ sex)..
It was insane.. like we had stepped back hundreds of years, and I was being branded a ‘troublemaker” for wanting to be treated as an equal. The excuses given were ‘Islamic law’ and ‘it’s our culture’ but of course they would just pick and choose the bits that were convenient for them. Again, I was told off when I pointed out the double standards and ridiculousness of it all.. My Mum didn’t believe she should get less than a man and went by British law and not Shariah when it meant she could get more, but would impose the stricter rules on me.
I began to sink in and out of depression.. I would doll myself up with makeup and play about with my hair to cheer myself up. I went blonde, which also made it more difficult for Mum to marry me off. I hated how things were at home. Years went by then one day I met a doctor friend of Dad’s who worked at the same hospital he did and he told Dad in no uncertain terms to get me away from Mum and my brother and said what I had been going through was abuse. He told Dad that I should have a safe place to go, as I‘d been hit and bullied so long and there was no sign of it stopping. I needed a safe place to live. Dad took this seriously and a few weeks later a lovely little flat had been bought. It was to be a ‘safe place’ to provide me with some security.
Mum was incensed though and stopped speaking to Dad, saying why should she get help for a home, despite the fact my brother had done. A couple of years later Dad ran into financial issues when the very last large payment on the mortgage of the family home was due. Neither Mum, who had well in excess of £100,000 available, or my brother wanted to help so I said to Dad to sell the flat, and that was what happened. Now my safe place was gone a lot worse was to come..
Although I was treated as someone quite unwanted that wasn’t something I was personally seeing amongst family friends, from what I saw their daughters had a lot more freedom and were going away to study, they were living their lives as normal. They didn’t have the same restrictions at all. People saw my Mum as conservative in the way women were maybe 50/60 years ago back in the homeland. The funny thing was that when I was very young I distinctly remember her wearing jeans, taking us to McDonalds at the weekends, I think we even went swimming together once, all things Mum later decided should be forbidden as they were symbols of western ‘haram’ lifestyles. Her own father, my other Grandad, had allowed her to leave home and go away to university though, and that was still a pretty rare thing back in that generation in Muslim families. Dad pointed out she was trying to deny me the freedoms she herself had been given and enjoyed.
She would constantly try and monitor what I was reading too. I loved reading… books, magazines, newspapers, whatever I could get my hands on.. I was interested in the news as well. According to her though, I should only be reading what she thought of as ‘appropriate’ and definitely not things that would fill my head with western ‘nonsense’ She would disapprove of a lot of books and magazines and so I took to hiding my teenage magazines especially under the front door mat and sneaking them in. I had turned 18 but was being treated like a child. I was living in a big house but it felt like I was in a cage. I began drawing the curtains and sitting in the dark. I don’t think of myself as a weak person generally but I hated living that way. My 16th, my 18th and my 21st went by but there were no celebrations. We lived to make God happy and women especially were meant to be ‘sober.’
I’m not someone who normally cries very easily but I was struggling a lot and as I got lonelier and lonelier I decided to try and get a pet. With more or less no cash of my own I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it till I realised I could adopt. When I was a little girl I had fallen in love with dogs but never been allowed a pet. So after finding a group online who needed to rehome chihuahuas off I went to adopt a dog. I knew my Mum would not be happy but when she was out one day I did it anyway and snuck him into the house and up into my room. What I hadn’t thought of though was that the little guy might bark and when my Dad walked past my room the next morning, of course he did, On opening the door though Dad fell in love with him and seeing what I was going through said we could keep him. I realised over the following years how loving these animals could be and have become so grateful to have had them in my life.
One day I woke up and as I was getting ready I heard loud shouting coming from the kitchen. I made my way over and opened the door to see my brother saying Dad should not be allowed to sell it. Yes, he would not be allowed to sell his own home. It was so bizarre. The exact words my brother used were that the house would be sold ‘over my dead body.’ He expected the house to be passed onto him as he was the son of course. He was punching Dad whilst Mum was sat on the sofa with her phone pointed at them, filming. Mum also wanted the property to be kept, because she had always thought having a big house gave her social status and standing in her community, despite it being Dad paying nearly all the bills himself but being unable to maintain it properly by this point. There were 6 or 7 bedrooms over 3 floors with only 2 being used. There was a swimming pool that was never used either. I ran over to take the phone out of Mum‘s hand and next thing I knew my brother had hit me too. Not only that but he then decided to call the police - on me. I had taken Dad into another room for safety and my brother was still showing how angry he was through the glass door. When the police arrived he must have spun then a story because the next thing that was happening was that both he and I were taken to the station.
This is something I find incredibly hard to talk about even now because of the fear of not being believed, but I am planning on getting legal help now all this time later. I was so naive back then I thought if I just told the truth it would all be fine. I was so naive I even declined having legal representation present because I hadn’t done anything wrong and I didn’t think I needed help.
My brother, I later found out, painted me as an aggressor, a problem and a trouble maker and so that he wouldn’t lose his job, he ‘needed’ to be a doctor, my Dad said he had never done this before, that he had never been violent, even though he obviously had. His life was still worth more than mine so I should get the blame. It hurts even to this day.
Dad wasn’t wanting or able to stand up to the bullying going on at home but by now I was trying to stand up and say ‘this isn’t OK.’ My things as well as Dad’s were being taken, including cash, gold and valuables and by this point I had had enough of my family’s behaviour and especially the bullying.
A son that had been indulged his whole life had now become a big problem. I’d been told ‘how dare I leave the house without permission’ and as well as the control issues he and Mum wanted as much in the way of material things as they could get their hands on. I’d needed a major eye surgery, a cornea transplant, I’d been waiting well over a year and could no longer read a book or anything on paper, but been told ‘no’, I would not get help to go private and fix my sight as I was struggling by this point, whilst my brother was given money to buy himself a new flash car. My life as a daughter instead of a son under my Mum meant nothing.
I had realised Mum had been stealing as well as trying to intimidate and frame me and when I tried to get help from the police the first time she got my sister in law to turn up and give them the impression I was a ‘trouble maker.’ All I had wanted was equal rights and I was trying desperately to stand up for myself. When I got beaten I’d never fought back but now I wanted to use my voice to say what was happening at home was wrong.
My sister in law mentioned working in Law presumably to be more believed than I should be and later on tried to help Mum take me to Court and kick me not only out of the house, but the entire area where we lived, for trying to speak up. Now they wanted me homeless. A family friend later received a threatening phone call for helping me and inviting me into her home. The itony that a lawyer could cover things up to help her husband and mother in law was not lost on me, but I remembered this happens every day all over the world,
We had been to Court and the Judge came down on my side. As well as trying to erase me Mum was demanding I not be allowed to talk about things. My dad’s solicitor was in Court with me and said it should be easy to see the case was a load of rubbish. The other side had put together pages and pages of court documents including fabricated and biased ‘evidence‘ thinking that would be the end of me.
My sister in law had came from a dysfunctional family herself, but rather than questioning things, she was going along with the BS.
I still need to talk about not only what happened to me but other girls in the family too. I found out later on that two girls had been attacked, RAPED by a third family member who was also working as a doctor and this had also been covered up. Our family had an image to maintain so the girls were blamed.
They called them names, said the first was ‘sleeping around’ to try and smear her, and that the second was after money. Three girls joined my family and then left as soon as they were able to. One ended up in a womens’ refuge whilst my Mum and others wanted to cover up what was going on. We weren’t in touch with each other then but we all went through Hell.
To look at me you might think I’m not capable, but my Mum and her family also underestimated me.
As I’ve said, I was the quiet, shy girl at school, the one my family thought could be the scapegoat and kept quiet. I’m about to prove them all wrong...