Excerpt:
Muslim community leaders and politicians are calling for an urgent review of the Islamic divorce process in Australia following an ABC News investigation that revealed abused women are being trapped in violent marriages.
The report found many Muslim women seeking religious divorce from abusive husbands are being denied it by male imams who are ignorant or dismissive of the dangers and seriousness of domestic violence, and of the legal conditions of family violence intervention orders.
While imams and other Islamic community leaders have strongly condemned all forms of domestic abuse, public lectures delivered in recent years by some influential clerics contain conflicting messages about whether Islam allows or even condones the non-physical abuse and control of women.