Maha Abdo: “The environment is not open to accepting you for who you are, let alone going out there and claiming to be financially abused.
We must include and support Muslim women when talking about financial resilience, says Maha Abdo, the CEO of the Muslim Women’s Association who shares her story below. This interview is published with the help of Good Shepherd Microfinance, in the lead up to the Resilient Women Summit in Sydney, supported by Women’s Agenda.
“We’ve talked about physical abuse, we’ve talked about emotional abuse. Financial abuse is something we have to start educating both men and women about.”
Maha Abdo knows financial abuse is an issue for Muslim women in Australia. A form of family violence, where the perpetrator undermines their partner’s efforts to become economically independent, it takes much the same shape in the Muslim community as it does in the broader community.
Men not allowing their partners to work, refusing them access to a bank account, or restricting their access to money they’ve earned. Behaviour designed to assert control.
For Maha, CEO of the Muslim Women’s Association, the type of financial abuse Muslim women face isn’t unique, but the challenges they face in recognising and responding to it certainly are.
“What we’re seeing at the moment is that a whole group of highly qualified professional women, second generation of Muslim women in Australia, who are struggling to build resilience within themselves, to be able to be resilient against what is happening externally,” she says.
Muslim women have to spend so much energy looking after their spiritual selves and staying physically safe in the face of increased racism, bigotry and hatred, Maha says, that many simply don’t have the energy to consider how they’re being treated in their own homes.
“Just getting on a train is a burden. Right now you have to have your antenna up, you need to have 360 degree vision about who’s behind you, who’s on your left, who’s on your right, who’s in front of you, who’s looking at you funny. There’s a lot of hatred because you’re Muslim.
“While the majority of people are amazingly supportive, there’s a minority that’s creating that sort of fear among all of us Muslim women … I think [Muslim] women are not privileged enough to be able to identify financial abuse in a relationship.”
The decreased feeling of safety is not only impacting Muslim women’s ability for self-reflection and to identify financial abuse. It impacts women’s wiliness to reach out to support services in place to help victims of family violence.
“The environment is not open to accepting you for who you are, let alone going out there and claiming to be financially abused. Even if you do, who do you trust to go to? It makes you stay home … it makes you get by with the minimum of what you have to do.”
If women don’t feel comfortable and accepted by their community, they’re not going to feel comfortable accessing the services setup by that same community.
Being aware of the generational divide
In her work supporting Muslim women of all ages and backgrounds, Maha has noticed generational difference shaping the way Muslim women respond to heightened Islamophobia. But the generational divide has nothing to do with Baby Boomers, Gen X, or Millennials. It’s between those who grew us and entered the workforce in pre 9/11 Australia, and those who have grown up since 2001.
“Women who are now professionals, in their late 30s and 40s, second generation, who born, raised and educated before 9/11, they see the world differently. They are very struck by what’s happening right now and very surprised by the hatred and the Islamophobia. Whereas you’ve got the younger generation who were at school when 9/11 happened … they’re saying ‘we’ve lived with this our whole lives, that’s all we’ve lived with’.”
“I’m the product of the post white Australia policy … a classic multicultural society building up momentum. There was nothing newer. These youngsters are having to face being labelled as ‘terrorists’. That’s been painful … you’re automatically being labelled as the other.”
As she prepares to address the Resilient Women Summit in Sydney, Maha Abo has been reflecting on what is needed to build financial resilience of Muslim women. She believes we need to ensure measures to support women are inclusive of all women, that they must not be judgmental, and that people in working in the space should be aware of what we may not know.
Finally, Maha notes, we need to recognise “the diversity of Australia, the richness that Australia has to offer. Appreciate it, don’t take it for granted.”
