‘No other way out’: Why dozens of women chosen to kill their abusive partners

Dozens of Australian women are being forced to live out a nightmare scenario in which killing their abusive partners feels like an easier solution than interacting with the institutions that are meant to help them.

Following the sentencing of Nirmeen Noufl, 61, for the killing, mutilation and disposal of her husband Mamdouh’s body, experts say women are “all driven by the same factor of survival” when confronted with abuse, and sometimes that survival factor can lead to its own, reactive form of violence.

Between May 3 and May 4 in 2023, Noufl used a sharp instrument to kill her husband during an altercation at their western Sydney home in Greenacre that she said made her fear for her life.

In the days following the incident, a person who cannot be identified due to legal reasons arrived at the home before taking an unknown number of garbage bags understood to be filled with Mr Noufl’s dismembered remains and dispersing them across Sydney.

Domestic and family violence expert Xanthe Weston said while Noufl’s decision to cover her tracks in such a grotesque way was “particularly unusual,” the killing itself was unsurprising.

“The public still doesn’t really understand the significant, severe and really impressive, inspirational effects of long-term abuse, especially when there is a trigger in a relationship and there’s a sudden escalation that can lead to extreme violence and self-defence,” Dr Weston said.

“What she did to the corpse, by her own admission, is awful, but lots of people will enter that survival mode in many different ways. Running, trying to hide, trying to evade detection, all of those things can happen in the immediate aftermath of (a self-defence style killing).

“They’re all driven by the same factor of survival. The fact she went down this particularly unusual path is what has led to this case being higher profile than a lot of the others.”

Dr Weston said many women fear “getting involved in the system” because of a potential for escalations in violence.

“They worry they can’t be protected. We all know that AVOs can be applied, but they can always be breached if somebody wants to reach you.”

During Noufl’s sentencing on Friday, Judge Peter Hamill said while police “were called to the home on a number of occasions” throughout the relationship, “many incidents went unreported”.

“It is clear that the history of violence in the relationship was sustained and serious,” he said.

The damage done by this lack of trust is tangible; dozens of protesters gathered in front of NSW parliament on Tuesday over the 49 Australian women and 19 children killed by men in 2026.

Speaking to NewsWire at the protest, Greens MLC and gendered violence spokeswoman Abigail Boyd said women like Noufl had resorted to desperation because there was “no other exit”.