Iranian refugee women in Australia: Their experience of marriage, divorce and gender roles

As an employee of the Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS), New South Wales, I have had the privilege of seeing a number of women from Iranian backgrounds as part of my case load. Most of these women presented with problems related to marriage. I began to work with the women, assisting them to find ways of rebuilding their lives - mainly through higher education and employment. I have known some of these women now for five years and in that time I have seen each of them become more self-reliant and less likely to accept abuse from their partners. During the course of my work at STARTTS with people from diverse cultural backgrounds, it seemed to be more than coincidental that women from Middle Eastern backgrounds and in particular, Iran, frequently sought counselling for marital problems. Very few seemed to have happy and healthy relationships with their husbands. Many are divorced or estranged from their husbands; others frequently leave their homes in search of protection. This problem is not abnormal in mainstream Australian society, but it did seem unusual to find so many women from the same country having similar kinds of marital problems, regardless of their class or educational background.