Naheed's Story
Our Origin Story
Unfortunately, the domestic abuse that our relative experienced is not an isolated event. Domestic abuse is a significantly underreported and unmanaged crime. Our Naheed was a kind, loving mother, sister, daughter, and aunt who was loved by all that knew her. She was also in a 30-year-old abusive marriage. The abuse was emotional, physical and as is the case with many domestic abuse stories, also included control through manipulation, and financial deprivation. Naheed came from a traditional South Asian family. She married at a very young age.
Her husband moved to England from a village in Pakistan after the wedding and the abuse followed shortly after they tied the knot. Initially he is isolating her from her family and friends by insisting they should have more one-on-one time together, canceling plans, and coming up with reasons why she should not see them. If Naheed tried to disagree with him, he would emotionally manipulate her by giving her the silent treatment, or make her feel guilty about neglecting him.
The abuse got worse and his actions got more brazen as the years went by. He would openly cheat on her and would not care about the hurt she felt or the humiliation she would suffer if their friends and family found out about it. He had no problem with being physically abusive to her in front of their kids. During one such incident, their teenage daughter confronted him about the abuse, and he responded by saying “she was his wife and he can do whatever he wants to her.” No one should be able to control you or your finances. It is an integral human right to have decision making power over your own life. Our aim is to make sure that more women in the world know this and can stand up for themselves.
Call For Action; Domestic abuse manifests through financial control
We need to implement a legal system that disqualifies an abusive partner from inheriting wealth from their victim. Victims of domestic abuse seldom call out their abuser, and, in many circumstances, are unable to voice their concerns. Naheed’s phone showed the level of abuse which led up to her abuser showing no respect, and if the police had been better trained to understand socio-cultural manifestations of violence in the south asian community, Naheed could still be alive today.
It must be noted that existing legal frameworks in the UK currently allows many abusers to continue violating their victims Scott-free. We want our community to help us open an investigation to find the root cause as to why the system did not work. The ‘system’ we refer to here includes health care professionals not identifying clear signs of abuse and blindly allowing a partner to have power of attorney over the sick victim. In this case the ‘system’ also included the police who allowed the abuser to enter the premises by minimizing Naheed’s fear of his presence. This happened even though he had violated the strict quarantine lockdown rules in the U.K.. Equally, financial institutions and the pension plan fund had no whistle blowers in place and comfortably handed over her assets to the abuser even though the law clearly states that a person classified as an abuser cannot receive power of attorney nor can they inherit from the victim. But her spouse was never classified as an abuser because the police never took her complains seriously. Are we starting to see the problem here? Moreover, financial institutions and the legal frameworks their legal frameworks allowed elderly financial abuse to take place against Naheed’s mother. This is because the abuser could easily transfer power of attorneys, financial assets along with home to himself by falsely gaining access Naheed’s mothers account and transfer credentials.
What can we learn from Naheed’s story?
- The lack of awareness about the root causes of domestic and financial abuse is deadly. Financial abuse is a major precursor to physical violence, and there is an urgent need to stop this at the grass root level.
- There are laws in place but we do not have fast implementation or awareness of these laws.
- We want to push our financial institutions to address the lack of financial literacy courses targeting the communities that need it the most, also addressing societal, and communal sensitivities when creating these courses in multiple languages. We are going to create bite-size messaging for their customers and clients.
- Why did the police not take action and enforce the strict lock-down rules against the abuser and stop him from entering the house or take preventative action to understand a Domestic Abuse scenario.
What We Want:
- We will also demand that U.K. lawmakers conduct an investigation into the circumstance surrounding Naheed’s death, seek justice for the victim and an examination of the several ways in which the system failed her.
- Join us in asking Nicole Jacobs, U.K Commissioner for Domestic Violence, to investigate the actions of Naheed’s abuser, who broke the strict quarantine lock-down rules in the U.K. and exposed Naheed to covid.
- To demand her last wishes she texted before she went on the ventilator to be fulfilled and her children rather than her abuser benefiting from her estate.
- Open up an elderly abuse Investigation against Naheed’s abuser for stealing her parent’s assets, savings, and pension plan .
- Ask the Trustee of the pension plan company, the banks, and the insurance company why they did not respect Naheed’s last wishes and release her assets to her 4 children rather to her abuser.