By Vanessa Cort
WE are now into the second week of the new year, some of us holding fast to the resolutions we may have made, others already breaking their resolve. We have our dreams for the year ahead, while hoping and praying for the best. But much of what we achieve will be dependent on the choices we make.
My particular dream, wish and hope for the future and this new year are fuelled by a conversation I had three weeks ago with a stranger at the Eye Clinic of the Georgetown Public Hospital.
I cannot remember what sparked our chat, but I can certainly recall its content. My new ‘friend’ began to recount her growing years in an abusive household, where her stepfather beat her, her mother and her younger brother regularly for no apparent reason. Her story was both touching and, at times, surprisingly amusing as she told of how she retaliated against this man’s cruelty and sought to bring the abuse to an end.
“When my mother first married him, everything was nice,” Lorraine told me. Her stepfather had no children of his own and, in those early years, treated her and her younger brother well. He was attentive to their mother and it was a happy home.
However, things began to change after the birth of his own two children. ” Then he started beating me and meh brother fuh no reason”, she said. The situation deteriorated further when he began to beat her mother, a mild-mannered woman, with regularity.
In an act of sheer mental torture, he announced that he would “beat meh mother every day when he comes home.” This meant the whole household awaited his arrival with trepidation. And her stepfather carried out his threat, removing his belt and proceeding to ‘rain blows’ on her mother, who was powerless to defend herself against a powerfully built man over six feet in height.
What started us both laughing and repeating our Guyanese saying, ‘Ting fuh cry ya laugh,’ is how Lorraine, as a teenager by now and of sturdy build herself, resolved to take action to draw attention to the abuse and put an end to it.
She revealed, on different occasions, a ‘ wild cane’ or a stout piece of greenheart wood and an assortment of bricks or bottles in their home. “Ah put dem to meh hand reach,” her tone reflecting both the bravery and fear she felt then.
As soon as her stepfather turned his back to hit her mother, she dealt him several heavy blows with her ‘ weapon’ and when he turned to attack her, she used either the bricks or the bottles to keep him at bay. Then she ran ‘ full pelt’ for the nearby police station, throwing herself to the ground when she got there and wailing that her stepfather had killed her mother.
This tactic drew immediate attention from neighbours, who had for years known of the abuse but did little to help, and the police, who wasted no time heading to the house and apprehending the man. Her stepfather would be locked up, subsequently released and the abuse would resume. It finally ended when her mother, clearly emboldened by her daughter’s willingness to suffer increased abuse in her defence, finally gained the courage to charge her stepfather and place him before the courts. The jail sentence he received allowed her mother to leave the area and start a new life elsewhere.
There was much more to this story and no doubt there are many more instances that do not end so well, where children have been forced to become physically involved in fights between parents. In the majority of cases, action is taken by the child to protect a mother who is being abused.
Experts warn us that children who witness domestic violence or are themselves abused are at serious risk of long-term physical and mental health problems. They are also at risk of being violent in their own future relationships, thus continuing the cycle of violence.
So, my dream is that there will come a time when domestic violence no longer exists — and a dream this surely is. My wish is that no child must be caught up in this web of abuse, that victims cease enduring it and use the legal methods at their disposal to get out of such relationships.
And my hope is that in this new year, we will see a decline in incidents of domestic violence as victims learn to take back their power.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.
