Slave bride brought to Birmingham beaten so many times she ‘stopped counting the bruises’

Sherish is sitting on her bed holding a religious book. As she opens it, searching for a comforting verse, she flinches at the pain emanating from a fresh bruise on her side.

Tears have already left dry, salty streaks on her face, she can’t run outside for help because someone will pull her back inside. She is a slave bride brought to Birmingham from Pakistan, trapped in a real-life dollhouse.

Her heartless in-laws see her as nothing more than an object. Something without a beating heart that deserves to be thrown and torn to shreds.

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Sherish, not her real name, is one of many South Asian women brought to Britain through sham marriages, then forced to work as slaves in their in-laws’ homes. Far from delicate flowers, these are accomplished women with well-paying jobs and degrees.

However, the pressure to marry and the promise of better opportunities in Britain forces them into suffocating lives of domestic servitude. Roshni, a charity which specializes in helping black and minority women against domestic abuse and honour-based violence, claims to be one of the many victims of Birmingham’s slave bride epidemic.

Indecent proposal

“Life was very good in Pakistan,” said Sherish. “Life was simple and easy, my mother died years ago but life was still beautiful.

“I was working in a professional job, but a family member wanted me to get married. I didn’t want to because I had desires for my own life.

“My future mother-in-law saw me on social media and started talking to me. I told him about my life and he said I was a very nice girl, he was texting me all the time.

“One day she said ‘why don’t you marry my son?’ I replied, “What?” I kept saying no, but she kept asking my mother and I thought this woman could be my mother, I really respected her.”

Sherish’s family agreed to the match and within a month the working woman was dressed in a wedding dress. She only spoke once on the phone with her fiance.

During the wedding, her future in-laws began to show their true colors, hurling insults at her family and belittling them.

Sherish’s biggest shock was when a close relative kissed her on the forehead, her fiance saw it and said directly, “Tell me, have you ever slept with them? I think they are not happy in the marriage, I think they want to have sex with you.

Sherish said, “I’m literally done with it.” Those red flags on the wedding day were a warning of things to come.

“You are not the daughter-in-law of the family, you are the housekeeper”

She had a bleak view of married life at the wedding, but now she couldn’t escape. After three years of waiting for the Covid-19 lockdown, Sherish finally traveled to the UK in 2022.

Living in Birmingham, she was delighted to play the dutiful daughter-in-law. Like a doll on display, she painted her cheeks and brushed her hair into feathery locks, hoping to impress her husband.

Little did she know that her submission would never be enough. She said: “My mother-in-law said they brought me here to cook, take care of this house and make their son happy. I was not allowed to work.

“I never went out except to shop and I wasn’t allowed to go alone. I didn’t drive and I didn’t have any friends. If my in-laws wanted something, I always had to be available.

“I didn’t have a bank account or national insurance number. She (mother-in-law) said ‘you’re not the daughter-in-law of the family, you’re the housekeeper'”.

Sherish was previously told that her husband had suffered mental health problems following an accident. As a result, he had violent mood swings and, according to Sherish, took drugs.

He regularly beat Sherish and accused her of sleeping with other men. If any man on the street looked her way, a slap would await her at home. He “checks” her body to make sure she remains faithful.

In tears, she claimed he would sometimes have sex with her without her consent, her cries of “please, I don’t want to” ignored. At one point, he kicked her down the stairs, causing long-term back problems.

Her mother-in-law began to resent her, spewing vile abuse over minor issues. Sherish remembers crying when a family member threatened her with a knife. Panic attacks would occur frequently after this.

She said: “I thought about running away but then I thought, this is my life now. I couldn’t tell my family what was happening. Once my husband caught me on the phone with them and slapped me on the head. .

“I’ve been hit so many times, I don’t even know where I have bruises or not. I asked my husband, ‘let me go back to my family, please.’

Escaping the dollhouse

One day, the police were called to the house for a separate matter, but an intuitive officer noticed something was wrong. Sherish’s shaky behavior caught their attention and she revealed the abuse she suffered, eventually getting kicked out of the house.

She said: “For four years I was mentally tortured and I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, I was done. I didn’t even file a complaint, I just wanted to be taken.

“The police officer told me ‘there are so many women’s rights in this country’ that I don’t know anything about it.”

She was no longer a battered doll and fell into the arms of Roshni who gave her things we normally take for granted. A National Insurance number, a GP, a bank account and a place to live, all indescribable privileges for Sherish.

She is in the process of divorcing her husband and is in regular contact with her family back home. A year later, sipping tea at a local cafe and laughing with friends is a greater treasure to her than winning the lottery, but she knows so many other women are still trapped in her former hell.

Sherish smiles, saying, “My life is not so beautiful and I am not the richest, but I am very comfortable in this normal life. It’s all because of Roshni.

“If anyone else is going through the same thing, I want to encourage all women to stand up for their rights. Never think that you are less than a person or less than a man. We have equal rights and we can do anything.”

There are many categories of modern slavery, including forced labor, domestic servitude, and sexual exploitation. Roshni claims the slave brides were among 1,000 black and Asian women rescued by the charity from physical, sexual and emotional abuse last year.

While it takes many attempts for women experiencing domestic violence to seek help, these numbers rise greatly for minority women. According to the charity Adavu, there were 122,000 people living in modern slavery in the UK on any given day in 2022.

Contact Roshni on 0800 953 9777 for assistance.

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