By Nankwanga Eunice Kasirye
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| google picture |
“….He kicked me in the stomach,I tumbled
against a sharp table edge, passed
out and
when I woke up I was on a hospital bed with blood transfusion drip into
my veins…I thought I was dreaming, a cracking sound inside my head, as i tried to comprehend where
I was and why I was there, before I came to terms , my sister calls my name
with sooth on my arm telling me that I lost my unborn baby and the womb, she
assured me that the medical team did everything they could to save me since I
lost a lot of blood….” Adriane a survivor of Violence against women narrates
Adriane is one of the survivors of Violence against women with the ability to speak out;
she says it all started with a simple complaint of her working over the
weekends and leaving the work place late. It initially sounded subtle and
ignorable but the complaint kept getting louder and frequent. Adriane is a
mother to three children, she had agreed with her husband to have four children
maximum but wait until the third born made four years to conceive the fourth
child. But her husband decided to make her pregnant just one year after she
gave birth to the third child, the couple had some arguments over what Adrian
call un planned pregnancy but later made peace with it and decided to carry her
pregnancy until she gives birth.
“….when i was just three months pregnant, my husband
started to demand that I resign from my job, he could sometimes lock me inside
the bedroom till it is too late for me to go for work, when that didn’t seem to
work for him , he started an allegation of a secrete lover at my office, he
said I was having a sexual affair with one of my workmates at office, I surely
thought it was one of those tantrums he throws to discourage me from going to
work. But one Friday there was a lot of jam therefore I spent a lot of time in
the jam but called him on phone him to inform him that I was likely to get home
late because of jam. However, when I got home it was almost 8pm yet I had left
office at 6:15pm, I found my husband waiting for me by door steps he picked my
hand bag and held my hand into the sitting room, closed the door behind us.
When I turned to greet him he just slapped me demanding answers on where I went
after work, before I explained anything he kicked me into the stomach and i
passed out…”she laments
Adrian was told by her untie and mother-in-law to never tell
people that her husband kicked her in the stomach, she was told that she ought
to persevere, for all women go through a lot of challenges in marriage sand
some other face even worst situations than hers. Her husband was never
apologetic but blamed her for provoking him into beating her up. He instead
told her that if she leaves the office job and stays home, he wouldn’t ever
beat her again.
For Adrian was lucky
that she had the guts to save herself, after she was completely healed she
decided to walk out of the violent marriage and started a complete new life amidst
criticism from both her family and in-laws. She still mourns her unborn child
and her womb even after five years of her physical battering.
Violence against women is real, until one is directly
affected by acts of violence; most people still think that it is an exaggerated
subject and a monopoly for the air-conditioned conference women groups and
individuals resented by society.
Statistics from the United Nations Women
(UNWOMEN) database indicate that 50% of the registered cases of violence against
women are lifetime physical or sexual intimate partner inflicted violence.
These figures may not mean a lot to anyone who has never witnessed or faced
violence against a woman but each number represents a person/s. And a lot of those who directly face violence
die without any form of justice since some communities/families/individuals/cultures
don’t even recognize the violence as crime especially when the perpetrator is
an intimate partner
