Posted on: 21 July, 2023
Cranstoun Birmingham Domestic Abuse team were invited to attend a Sikh women’s memorial on Monday 17th July at Centenary Square, Birmingham.
Birmingham Leader Worker & Housing Solutions Managers Maureen Golding, Lucy McFarlane, Safural Giwa & Mark Farrell at the memorial.
This was to acknowledge the death of 20 Sikh women from the mid 1970’s to the present day that had been killed by partners or family members, mainly through honour based violence.
The memorial was held to pay respects to these women and the fate they had suffered and to publicise that honour based abuse and violence is still prevalent to the present day and these victims of domestic abuse suffered this fate from husbands, brothers and other family members. The memorial highlighted that this is still looked on as an accepted way of dealing with a vulnerable person that wants to leave or has left an intolerable situation and wants to improve their life, without suffering all forms of abuse from close family members and in some cases their community at large.
We had a talk from Cllr Nicky Brennan, Cabinet Member for Social Justice and Community Safety, on what Birmingham is doing to address this.
We also heard from Sahdaish Pall BEM, the CEO of Sikh Women’s Aid, explaining about these women and this memorial for them and to highlight the ongoing issues still being experienced by women today in honour based violence situations and the help that still needs to be provided by services and the legal system. She is a very vocal campaigner on advocating for rights for Sikh and South Asian women.
The memorial was ended by a prayer in English and Punjabi.