I'm working as a crisis intervention councillor and dealing with crisis calls. We don't need very strong evidence, as long as the woman is calling. Unfortunately, to them, abuse is only severe physical abuse.
They all say, “Well, I go through difficulties. My husband is not coming home or he is coming home drunk or whatever, but he never hits me. He never beats me”. But when I ask more questions, there are obviously other forms of abuse, which immigrant people do not commonly consider as abuse.
As one of the other speakers mentioned, they don't count the verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and psychological abuse. However, as you ask more questions and they describe their daily lives, you can see that.