Muslim women, in short, cop it from both sides. Those working in domestic violence refuges staffed by women in hijabs in Australia report the constant defacing of facades, of pornography stuffed under doors, hate wedged behind doormats. It’s a glimmer of insight into the constant need for vigilance felt by Muslim women in Australia today, when even the sight of a veil can provoke. Many who work with victims of domestic violence say they are often caught between wanting to uphold the honour of their community, which is regularly under attack, and wanting to challenge leaders and men to abandon archaic attitudes and treat women with more respect. This week, an ABC News investigation by Hayley Gleeson, Sarah Malik and me – the latest in a series examining domestic violence in faith communities - revealed abused Muslim women in this country are often denied a religious divorce by imams who tell them to return to their homes, to keep their emotions in check and obtain their husband’s consent if they want to leave. Federal Labor MP Anne Aly has experienced the strictures imposed upon Muslim women. Credit:Fairfax Media

This insidious practice is detaining women in abusive marriages for years. In Islam, men are able to divorce their wives without reason, while women need to persuade a board of all-male imams that they have legitimate grounds to separate. Just in the past few weeks, women holding intervention orders have been told to return to violent husbands. We found that while Muslim leaders and clerics have strongly condemned domestic violence in all its forms, some still teach followers that men have the right to control their wives, including whether or not they can work, invite family members over or leave the house, even if it is just to go to the backyard to collect the laundry. According to Sheik Shady Alsuleiman, the president of the Australian National Imams Council, if a woman goes to work without her husband’s consent, he has grounds to divorce her and give her nothing. Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman said in 2016 that a woman needs her husband’s permission to leave the house. Credit:Steven Siewart

Alsuleiman, the lead signatory on a 2017 letter signed by more than 30 Muslim leaders that condemned "all forms of intimidation and abuse targeting women", who studied for several years in Syria, said in 2016 that a woman needs her husband’s permission to leave the house, "even if it is to go and visit her parents or to go shopping or to go down the road". But now women are beginning to speak. Labor MP Anne Aly, the first Muslim woman elected to federal parliament is one of them Her first marriage was to a violent man who tried to entrap her – continuing his abuse of her - by denying her an Islamic divorce. 'We need to start listening to the real, lived experiences of women who are forced to stay married to men who are abusive towards them because they cannot have access to a divorce,' she told The Drum this week. "I think the issue runs deep, and starts off with the birth of a girl child and the idea that a young woman's value is only measurable by the kind of partner she can attract … that a woman is not complete unless she's married.

Lawyer Mariam Veiszadeh tweeted in response to the ABC’s reports: “To women, far & wide, whether Muslim or otherwise, please raise your voices, even if your voice shakes...” “Let’s hope our Imams sit up and listen. So much needs to change, now!” Maha Abdo, the long time head of the Muslim Women’s Association, was gentle but firm: “The reality out there is very much what has been captured [in the reports] ... we can’t pretend everything is okay because it is not, otherwise I wouldn’t be here and none of us would be here [at the crisis centre]. “The majority of imams are really on the same level and are promoting women’s rights within the Islamic faith but we can’t deny the fact that some men need to be educated.” And other men need to do this. Women need to be included, she said, on divorce panels and on advisory boards, and they need to be heard.

Activist and Melbourne café owner Hana Assafiri, who was abused as a young teenager and as a wife, told the ABC that she has had abusive phone calls and rape threats for many years. And when she allowed Ms Saffaa to paint the Saudi women’s mural on the wall of her café, Muslim men circled her building threateningly, glowering. But, she says, “because I've experienced violence, I’ve arrived at a place where those kind of conventions that try and keep you silent, they don’t work for me. Once you transcend that, it's a more powerful place to stand in.” It takes real courage to speak in this space. It takes a lot less than that to listen. Julia Baird hosts the Drum on ABCTV.