When the abused hit back and become survivors
WHILE the world would urge a victim of abuse to report the offender to police and take other necessary measures, the final decision to leave an abusive relationship must come from the victim, advised an abuse survivor.
A 60-year-old mother was speaking at the start of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence campaign, which is an international initiative to challenge violence against women and girls.
The campaign, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, started yesterday and runs until December 10, Human Rights Day.
The Tongaat-based resident, who suffered at the hands of her abusive husband, for more than 30 years, did not want to be named because her daughter who was also abused by her husband was not ready to speak out.
After many years of abuse, she eventually put an end to her suffering when she charged and later divorced her husband in 2015.
“When we fell in love, I believed he was a man who wouldn’t harm a fly, and he continued to be that same person for the first three months of our marriage, until one day when something went wrong.
“I don’t remember what happened but he slapped me. I was just shocked, and kept thinking about what I might have done wrong. It got worse thereafter. After each assault, I would ask myself what I had done wrong,” she said.
The survivor was abused physically, emotionally and financially. She said: “He refused to work but yet he was an alcoholic and smoked cigarettes excessively. I was a working mother who supported our household and catered to my daughter’s every need, but he would still hit me. Apart from his hands he assaulted me with a belt and a beer bottle on one occasion and I sustained various injuries to my body, each time.
“I remember when I reached a breaking point, I retaliated by hitting him back with the belt; he was stunned. But the abuse still continued and it started affecting my daughter.”
The daughter, who was present at the time of the interview, said: “I was in matric and I couldn’t handle the stress. We were completely shut out from the world and it came to a point where someone would have been killed in our home. I told my mother that she needed to choose because I was ready to leave.”
After the mother opened charges of abuse against her husband and went through the legal processes, she eventually withdrew the charges on condition that he did not return to her Tongaat home.
While the mother and daughter continued to recover and rebuild their lives as “empowered women” the husband became homeless and eventually died, last year.
However, the mother ensured his last rites were performed.
“No one else would have taken the responsibility to give him a funeral and it was our way of forgiving him and moving on. My daughter cried for her father at the end of the day, and she was able to let the negativity go so her life could blossom.
“Our life is peaceful now, we can enjoy and rebuild without bitterness, and we still consider his extended family as our own,” she said.
She added: “Looking back I wish I had left him earlier but I wasn’t as strong then. The bold move to get out of an abusive relationship had to come from me, and it’s not easy to do so, especially when there’s a child involved.
“As a victim you feel like we would be letting our family down if we opted out. At the end we have to decide whether we want to be an abused wife, or a mother and role model to our children.”