Afghan refugee Roia was 14 when she came to Australia, but she didn't find refuge here.
For six years she was beaten by her husband and father of her four children. It ended when he set her on fire while she was carrying their eight-month-old daughter.
She says she never left because she didn’t know she could. The mother of four only met the police in hospital after her husband had set her on fire.
“I had no idea that the police actually get involved in domestic issues,” she says.
“That what he was doing to me police actually cared about it or anybody else because in my head I thought that everybody knows what he’s doing to me and my children and they’re ok with it.”
Her husband was jailed for attacking her.
Roia now works in domestic violence helping women and children find accommodation and says there are many women like her from migrant backgrounds who don’t know help is available.
That’s what the Northern Suburbs Community Legal Centre and West Australian Police are hoping to change.
They’ve begun shooting a video which dramatizes a domestic violence incident and shows how police will respond.
It also provides information about community groups and government agencies that can help.
The video will be translated into some languages but the aim is to provide a visual aid for people who have poor English skills.
“Sometimes we see cases where people have been living for years under this domestic violence and they're not doing anything about it," Scott Johnson from the Northern Suburbs Community Legal Centre says.
"We want to get that information out there so they know how to deal with it."
“The ethnic leaders in WA raised this as one of the main issues that they wanted information about.”
The WA police are also hoping that the video will make it clear that domestic violence is a crime in Australia.
“It's not to be tolerated in any family situation, no matter culture, or religion or what nationality you are,” Inspector Don Emanuel-Smith says.
One of the actors on the video is South Sudanese refugee Elizabeth Lang who has worked in domestic violence education.
'Shoot’s over – let’s get those handcuffs off': Police with an actor in the educational film (Ryan Emery)
She says across the whole community, one in three women over the age of 15 will experience violence in some form.
“We need to have those dialogues about domestic violence because it is so prevalent,” she says.
“And the more that that dialogue happens around the community, the more that we can start to address and challenge it as well.”
The video is expected to be released early next year as a DVD and online.
Readers seeking support and information on domestic violence can contact the National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line on 1800 737 732 or Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800 for under 25s.
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