Abuse abroad carries an extra layer that is hard to explain to anyone who has not lived it. You may be thousands of miles from family, unsure of your rights, dependent on his immigration status, and genuinely afraid that reporting will cost you the right to remain.
That last fear is used deliberately. Threats about immigration are one of the commonest forms of control we see in women living outside Nigeria, and they are frequently untrue.
Immigration status
Many countries have provisions allowing a person whose immigration status depends on a spouse to remain if the relationship ended because of abuse. The details differ enormously between countries and the rules are rarely intuitive.
Three things matter more than anything else here.
- Get specialist immigration advice before you make any application about the relationship, not afterwards. The order in which things are done can determine the outcome.
- In many countries that advice is free, through a charity, a law centre or a legal aid scheme. Ask before assuming you cannot afford it.
- Never rely on what he tells you about your status. He is not a neutral source, and in our experience what women are told at home about their immigration position is wrong more often than it is right.
If he holds your documents, that is itself relevant. Taking somebody’s passport to control them is recognised as abuse in most jurisdictions and is an offence in several.
Reporting where you are
In most countries reporting domestic abuse does not affect your immigration status, and in several it strengthens an application to remain because it evidences the abuse.
Ask a specialist rather than assuming, and ask before you need to rather than in the middle of an emergency.
You are entitled to an interpreter. Do not accept a family member as the interpreter, ever, and say so clearly if one is offered. Interpreting through a relative is how disclosures get softened, mistranslated or reported back.
What a Nigerian mission can do
Embassies and high commissions can help with a replacement passport if yours has been taken. They can provide a list of local lawyers. They can contact your family in Nigeria with your consent, and in some cases assist with emergency travel.
What they cannot do is intervene in another country’s legal process, pay your legal fees, or advise you on your host country’s immigration rules. Knowing the boundary saves time and disappointment.
Money
Financial control is often sharper abroad, because the local systems are unfamiliar and everything is in his name. A bank account, a phone contract, a tenancy and a car may all sit with him.
The practical steps are the same as anywhere else and the first is usually identification. Find out what documents open a basic account where you are. Many countries have a legal right to a basic account that is less demanding than people assume. What financial control looks like and how women start to unpick it applies wherever you are.
If you are thinking about coming home
Plan it, particularly if children are involved.
Removing a child from a country without the other parent’s consent or a court order can be treated as abduction, even by a parent with entirely good reasons, and even where you are returning to your own country of origin. It can result in an order to return the child.
Take legal advice in the country you are in before travelling. That is the single most important sentence in this article, and it is the mistake that causes the most lasting damage. What courts consider is set out separately.
Isolation
Women abroad describe a particular kind of loneliness. The community that would ordinarily notice is not there, and the diaspora community that is there may know your husband, may be small, and may take his side.
That makes two things more important than usual. One person outside that community who knows, and a phone or an account he cannot see. Account access is the commonest way women abroad are monitored, because everything is done online when family is far away.
What we can do
We can help you find services where you are, speak to your family in Nigeria if you want us to and only if you want us to, and prepare for your arrival if you are returning.
We can also simply be somebody Nigerian to talk to about it, which several women have told us was the part that mattered. Contact us through this site and say where you are, because it changes what we can arrange.
Questions people ask
Will reporting cost me my visa?
In most countries no, and several have specific protections for people whose status depended on an abusive partner. Get specialist advice for your country before acting, and do not rely on what he tells you.
Can I bring my children back to Nigeria?
Not without consent or a court order in most cases. Doing so can be treated as abduction. Take legal advice in the country you are in first.
He has taken my passport. What can I do?
Report it, and contact the Nigerian mission for a replacement. Withholding somebody’s passport to control them is recognised as abuse and is an offence in several countries.
Can the embassy make him stop?
No. A mission cannot intervene in another country’s legal process. It can help with documents, lawyers and in some cases emergency travel.
If you need help now
If you are in immediate danger, call 112. To talk to HealBridge, call or send a message to +2348025170267, or use the form on our contact page. Every page on this site has a Quick Exit button at the top right, and pressing the letter E three times does the same thing.
Before you rely on anything on this page
We publish these articles so that you can understand a subject and work out what to ask for. They are written carefully and in good faith. They are still general information about how things usually work, and not advice about your situation, which we do not know.
- This is not legal advice.
- We are not a law firm. Criminal law in Nigeria is largely a state matter, the VAPP Act applies in a state only if that state adopted it, and statutory, customary and Islamic marriages are governed by different law and different courts. Two people with the same facts can have genuinely different options. Get advice from a lawyer who practises where you live — and if cost is the obstacle, ask us, because arranging that is part of what we do.
- This is not medical advice.
- Nothing here is a diagnosis and nothing here replaces being examined. Do not delay seeing a doctor, nurse or pharmacist because of something you read here, and do not start, stop or change any treatment on the strength of it. If something is time critical, go and be seen.
- This is not counselling, and it is not financial advice.
- Articles about trauma, sleep, money, debt, renting or starting a business describe what commonly helps. They are not therapy and they are not a recommendation about your own money. Speak to a counsellor, a qualified adviser or your own bank about your circumstances.
- It may be out of date, or wrong for where you are.
- Law changes, services close, numbers stop answering and practice varies by state. We correct what we find, and we cannot promise that every page is current on the day you read it. Where we do not have something confirmed, we say so rather than fill the gap.
- Reading this does not make us your lawyer or your doctor.
- No professional relationship is created by reading an article, and we cannot accept liability for decisions taken on the strength of one. What we can do is help you reach somebody who is qualified to advise you, which is what the legal and health parts of our work exist for.
- We cannot promise an outcome, and we cannot make anybody safe.
- A protection order is a piece of paper backed by an enforcement system that is inconsistent. A plan works until the day it does not. Anybody in this field promising safety is selling something, and the promise itself is dangerous because it stops people planning.
Do not let this notice stop you acting. If you are in immediate danger, call 112. If something is medically urgent, go to a hospital — you do not need a police report to be treated. And if you do not know where to start, that is a normal way to begin: use the contact page and we will take it from there.
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