Women like my aunt should not be dying at the hands of violent partners

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/23/women-dying-domestic-violence

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The director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has announced that domestic violence conviction rates are at an all-time high after a four-year campaign by prosecutors to tackle violence against women and girls. This follows a further momentous move by the Home Office which, only last week, launched a pilot disclosure scheme permitting police in northern England to "proactively release information to protect a person from domestic violence where it is lawful, necessary and proportionate to do so". In other words, anyone worried about the potentially abusive nature of their partner has the right to call on the police to either substantiate or dismiss their fears through hard records, and act accordingly. I wish this scheme every possible success – and hope it will be rolled out across the entire country.

Why? One year ago this month, my quiet little world came to a screeching halt with a phone call informing me in devastatingly simple terms that my beloved aunt, Mumtahina Jannat, had been strangled to death by Abdul Kadir, her former husband and the father of her two young daughters. She had spent years trying to escape him and yet, despite all her fears, neither the British courts nor the Asian community she strove so hard to please permitted her to exclude him from her life as entirely as she wished.

My aunt was only 28 at the time of her death, but had already suffered unimaginable cruelties during the course of her life. Blackmailed into marriage (he was rich, she was poor; he had friends in high places, her widower mother had no one and a large family to support), she was married in Bangladesh, brought to England, and abused from the day of her wedding. Enduring daily beatings, rape and broken ribs, it was only when her husband raised his hands against her daughters that she found the willpower to ignore the sometimes suffocating burden of "family honour" and finally escape. From the day she entered the police station with her three words of English to the moment she breathed her last, she tried everything she could to secure three things: a divorce, sole custody of her children and acceptance in her community.

She died unable to accomplish even one of these goals. For to divorce a man who wants to "keep" you, and is rich enough to secure the best lawyers, one needs money (and legal aid, now demolished, is rarely enough). Nor did she have deep enough scars to convince the social workers or the judge in her custody trial of the dangers posed by the father towards her children. On top of all this, my aunt had to further ignore the sneers of distant family members or strangers in her community who felt they had every right to judge her for daring to "leave" her husband.

With each day that has passed since her murder, flashes of her life rise before me – whether through a sudden longing for a piece of cake that only she could make, or the sudden vision of her sitting on my sofa watching a cartoon with her two little girls. And despite Kadir having been convicted of murder and the cooling words of well-meaning friends and family, I find that I cannot forgive, forget and move on as expected.

Because everywhere I look, I see one single, gut-wrenching truth: that despite living with supposed freedoms and equalities enshrined by laws, the basic human right to be guaranteed sanctity from violence or harm continues to be a right denied to women and girls everywhere.

Every week, two women are killed by a violent partner or ex-partner in England and Wales alone. And yet, since April 2011, 72% of women's outreach services in England have experienced severe funding cuts, leading to an average of 230 women being turned away from help each day. How can we allow this to happen?

All of us have the choice of doing something to help lower these statistics and gradually end violence against women. It won't be done in a day, but the point is, it can be done.

So whoever you are, whatever you are capable of, I urge you to do just one thing today, in tribute to the countless women who are at this very moment experiencing abuse. Show your support for, volunteer your time to, or donate your money to the many organisations working to end domestic violence. Because enough is enough. Police schemes – such as the one launched last week – are a welcome development, but it will take each and every one of us to truly end violence against women.