Yesterday ( Monday 12th February 2018) at St Paul’s Church, Leamington Spa, I heard an amazing speaker Raj Holness who runs an organisation called Break the Silence Uk (BTSUK) which seeks to protect and support women who have suffered domestic abuse, human trafficking and forced marriages, and also to provide a refuge for them alongside educating the community about the issues involved.
Raj was born into a Sikh family in Birmingham and suffered severe domestic abuse for twenty years. She eventually found the courage to break away from her abusers, took on the Christian faith, and founded the BTSUK. She named the book I Dared To Call Him Father as one of the books which had a powerful influence on her, and helped her to make a radical transformation in her life. She herself has subsequently published a book called The Only Arranged Marriage under her maiden name Raj Jarrett. I bought the book after Raj’s talk and it’s next on my reading list – I’ll publish my review here on my blog.
Rah is now an assured public speaker and is married with a young daughter. Her story of emotional, physical and sexual abuse is truly horrifying and she is in herself an astonishing example of a woman who has come through the worst of circumstances into a new life where she has embraced a whole new vision of herself and of her place in the world.
I’ve begun to read “The Only Arranged Marriage” and I do recommend it to you if you haven’t come across it before. If you have read it, please let me know what you think!
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