Grace from South Korea met her future husband at a mutual friend's party, just a few months after arriving in Australia. At the time she spoke very little English, but he impressed her.



"He was very kind and gentle, he was good friend, he was good colleague, he was good son, he was good brother. So, I didn't know," she says.

Listen: Crisis accommodation shortage hits migrant women, Naomi Selvaratnam reports

"They didn't even call me back. I had no family, I had nowhere to go, I had no money. I didn't even have clothes. I didn't even have food. I didn't even have visa."

But two years into the marriage everything changed. Grace fell pregnant, an event she believed was a catalyst for abuse. At the time she was living with her husband's parents. She says they would just watch while he beat her."He didn't want to keep the baby. He want me to have abortion, but I said no," she said."He hit my body around my tummy. First they wanted to stop him but I think they gave up on him after too many hitting. So they didn't do anything."Despite the beatings, Grace didn't lose the baby but things got worse once her daughter was born. She says she called the police several times, but when they arrived her husband would tell them to leave."As you know, my English not perfect but his English perfect," she said."He's born here so he's native so they talk about the situation and he told to police officer of we're going to fix this relationship. You can just go, this is nothing. And police left. And I was shaking as well. I was scared," she says.Finally, after a particularly violent incident, Grace called the police again."I just needed protection by police. But they just took me to a motel with my baby and they left," she says.

But it wasn't long before Grace's husband found her at the motel and brought her home, where the violence escalated.



Those working in the field of domestic violence say Grace's story is common. Experts say there is a critical shortage of accomodation for victims with refuges across the country that provide emergency shelter are usually full.



There's also a shortage of medium-term accommodation where women moving out of refuges can go, while they try to establish new lives without an abusive partner.



Often, those hit worst by the accommodation shortage are migrant or refugee women with limited English, and lack of back-up support networks of friends or relatives.



Lauren Burt is an outreach worker at the Penrith Women's Refuge in Sydney. She says many women don't know their visa rights, and wrongly believe that if they leave their partners, they will be deported.



"Their visas are usually dangled in front of them like a carrot," she says.

"If you don't follow the rules, then you're out of this country. If they've got children, I'll keep the child, you'll have to go back home. You won't see your child ever again, threats like that."

"And it's a very real fear because they don't know what the law is, what the rules are. All they've got to go by is what their partner is saying."



Anna, from the Philippines, met her husband through an online dating service. He first brought her to Australia on a tourist visa, and after she agreed to marry him, on a spouse visa.



But she says her optimistic visions about her new life in Australia were swiftly crushed.



Anna says her husband would push and control her, choosing everything from which clothes she could wear to who she was allowed to spend time with.



After a year, Anna tried to leave but she says he threatened to have her removed from the country, and because she didn't know the law, she believed him.



"I didn't know what was happening," she says.



"He said to me, Sorry. And then that's why he wanted to kick me out this country because he's scared."

"He said to me, it's better that I kick you out of this country. That's why he did everything to kick me out of this country. I was really scared, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, thinking what is going to happen?"

Ms Burt says when migrant and refugee women do leave abusive relationships, there are often visa difficulties to sort out.



"Lots of the time, women won't be Australian residents yet and they'll be here on spousal visas and to do that the process is that you have to stay in a relationship or a marriage for two years to be able to get permanent residency and so many women won't have permanent residency by the time they have to leave a relationship due to violence."



"They often don't have a lot of connections with the community. Quite often they've been isolated from any sense of community so they've got to sort of learn to be independent."



Lina Louis is a support worker at the Beryl refuge in Canberra and says a majority of the women seeking a place at the refuge are from migrant or refugee communities and often they're disappointed.



"We do have women where we can't accept them because we're full. In some cases, the women have to just go back to their DV situation. When they go back to their partners it grows, I mean it's a cycle of DV. And at times it gets worse. Every time they leave it gets worse and worse and worse and worse."



Janine Mahoney works with the Safe Futures Foundation, which works with domestic violence victims in Victoria.



She says the use of motels has become a common fall-back option for overcrowded refuges.



"We often have to say that we're at capacity, and that's why there's such a huge number of women sitting in motels with their children every night," she says.



"The number of family violence callouts for police in Victoria alone last year were over 61,000. So when you look at how many days there are in a year and you put that into 61,000 you can imagine how many callouts -- and that's only the women experiencing family violence who have had a physical assault, or are at risk of physical assault."



"They are the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands upon thousands more women in our community experiencing violence and fear in their home every day who are not at that point of needing to call the police. So the demand for service is beyond what most people can even imagine."



She says in some cases, the outcome will be fatal.



"I've personally had four cases of homicide with this particular service. Unfortunately, most services in Victoria will have had at least one of their clients have that awful outcome."



"The rates of domestic homicide in Australia are increasing and that means there are women being murdered in their homes by their partners. And so if we can't provide the responses for women, then that is going to continue to increase as well."

Watch this story on YouTube: