WATCH ABOVE: A domestic abuse victim details her personal experience navigating the complicated legal system. Cindy Pom reports.
TORONTO – Zahra Mohamoud Abdille, the Toronto woman found dead along with her two sons in a Thorncliffe Park apartment on Saturday, tried to escape an abusive relationship, Global News has learned.
Police have said they are investigating how her husband, Yusuf Abdille, was connected to the murder but have not said whether he is a suspect.
Abdille had spent time at Dr. Roz’s Healing Place, a shelter for abused women with her two sons Faris and Zain for three weeks last year. She was supposed to find her own place but didn’t qualify for subsidized housing and couldn’t afford market rent; eventually went back to her husband.
The YWCA launched the #NotOkay campaign in November to call attention to the issue of domestic abuse in Canada.
That isn’t always violent: It also includes sexual, emotional, verbal or financial abuse.
“I would say that abuse is so damaging that when you have to flee, it’s because you are afraid of dying,” said Dr. Roz Roach, the executive director of Dr. Roz’s Healing Place. “To leave your home to go to a place that you don’t know, you can only imagine the extent of the abuse. Women don’t just get up and run away because they want to be somewhere else. When a woman leaves her home it’s because she’s going through extreme suffering.”
100,000 women and children leave their homes each year for the safety of a shelter. Ninety per cent don’t plan on returning to their spouse – but two-fifths don’t know where they will go next, according to the YWCA.
According to Statistics Canada, almost three-quarters (71 per cent) of Canadian women who sought shelter in 2010 were trying to escape abuse. And almost a third of them had at least one previous stay at a shelter in 2010. The number who had previous stays in shelters was up from 25 per cent in 2008 according to Statistics Canada.
Ontario had the lowest rate of readmittance to shelters at 20 per cent of women, according to Statistics Canada, while Manitoba had the highest, at 40 per cent.
Why do women return to abusive relationships? There is a long list of reasons, Roach said.
“Sometimes women go back to the abusers because of financial reasons, sometimes go back to the abusers because of societal pressures, sometimes women go back to the abusers because they are afraid of losing their children,” Roach said. “There are so many reasons why women go back to their abuser.”
Roach did say Abdulli wasn’t eligible for subsidized housing or legal aid because she worked full-time as a public health nurse.
Signs of domestic violence
Stalking has been identified as one of the primary risk factors for attempted and actual murder of women in Canada.
According to statistics from the Canadian government, many deaths are preceded by a recent separation.
People who are being abused may, according to Helpguide.org:
- Seem afraid of anxious to please their partner
- Submit to every request their partner has
- Frequently check in with their partner
- Receive frequent, harassing phone calls from their partner
- Talk about their partner’s temper, jealousy or possessiveness
- Have frequent injuries
- Miss work, school, or social events
- Hide bruises
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