Onjali Rauf received a phone call from the police the day her Auntie Ruma was murdered by her violent ex-husband.
“We went straight to the house,” she says. “But the kids had already been taken straight from school into foster care.”
The nightmare of losing Ruma was compounded when her maternal family lost her two beloved children in the same moment.
“We saw those kids every other day,” Onjali says. “Our home was a refuge for them. We would watch films with them and take them on holiday. They were part of our family.”
Under existing British law, it is the father who maintains parental control of his children – even if he has murdered their mother, and even if he subjected their mother to years of violent abuse.
This meant that when 29-year-old Mumtahina Jannat – known as Ruma – was murdered, her family were not allowed contact. Her murderer, their father Abdul Kadir, 49, remained in control from his jail cell.
“We weren’t allowed to know where the children were,” Onjali says. “We had no idea. Meanwhile, he was allowed to make contact and even send them letters if he wanted to. He had the phone number of the foster parent.
“These controlling abusers maintain control over a woman through her children, even after they have taken her life. His side of the family are allowed contact, but the mother’s side are wiped out with her.
“It was devastating for our family. My mum felt that she had not only failed her cousin but was now failing the kids.”
This week is the 12th anniversary of Ruma’s murder, but still the agony for maternal families goes on.
A woman is killed by a man every three days in the UK.
Bereaved families’ group Killed Women is campaigning for the Victims and Prisoners Bill – currently going through Parliament – to change the law to remove parental responsibility from men convicted of parental homicide.
“Children should be the lighthouse of the Victims’ Bill,” Onjali says. “But, currently, children’s voices are not being heard. Not even when they themselves are being harmed – or even killed – by the same perpetrator.”
This week Killed Women wrote to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to “urge the Government to use this moment to ease the suffering of families like ours.” The group said: “Unbelievably, if a father kills a mother, parental responsibility stays with that killer… These killers can use this power to continue the controlling and abusive behaviour they inflicted upon the woman they killed.”
Onjali’s mother was Ruma’s second cousin – and the three women had grown close when Ruma turned to them for help after fleeing with the children to a refuge five years earlier.
When they were told they weren’t allowed to know where her children were being fostered or to make contact with them, they were devastated.
“Even worse, no one could see the letters their father was sending,” she says. “It was up to them whether they discussed them with the foster carer or not.
“We didn’t see the children for over a year. After we were finally reunited with them, they asked us questions that gave us hints about the lies they were being told in those letters. Lies that tried to justify his murder of their mother. It was like daggers to your heart.”
For their part, Onjali and her mother now know the horrific details of Ruma’s abuse and murder but have said they won’t share them with the children until they are ready, “and that may not be for a long time, or ever”.
Onjali says she has kept speaking out – despite death threats made against her and her mum during the trial – because she is passionate about raising awareness of what she describes as the “irreparable damage and trauma” caused by loss of contact between children and maternal families.
“Until it happens to you, you don’t know how broken the system is,” she says. “You don’t know it’s geared towards this violent person, who has all the protections and all the rights.
“My aunt was murdered in 2011 and I’m still in a state of shock about just how insidious the whole thing is. There’s no justice. ‘Justice’ isn’t the right name for this system.
“Why do we even think murderers should have parental responsibility? They forfeited that ‘responsibility’ when they killed their children’s mother. It’s beyond logic. If it weren’t ruining lives you’d laugh because clearly this system was set up by a joker.”
In 2011, Onjali launched ‘Making Herstory’ – an anti-trafficking and domestic violence charity – in memory of her aunt.
An award-winning novelist, known for best-seller The Boy at the Back of the Class, in 2019 she wrote The Star Outside My Window, a story highlighting the impact of domestic violence upon children.
At the heart of everything is the loss she experienced of Ruma and the two children snatched away at the time they most needed their maternal family. “I don’t think me or my mum will ever recover from it,” Onjali says.
She explains it was hard to watch the children suffer due to their loss.
“That youthful confidence was sucked out of them. And of course they had trouble trusting us again – why would they? There is a child in them that was never able to come out again after that day.”
Yet now the children are beginning to achieve their mum’s ambition for them of becoming independent, educated young people.
“They are beautiful, calm and reflective,” she says. “They are each other’s anchors, and I am really proud of them.”
For Onjali’s family, changing the law on parental responsibility would be a first step to justice.
