Last weekend a female journalist working with one of the prominent newspapers opened up and told her story of the domestic violence and abuse she had suffered at the hands of her husband and father to her two children.

They began their love story in a one-roomed house but as the man became wealthy, built a mansion, bought expensive cars for himself and his wife. the abuse started and intensified to the point of him battering her while pregnant.

After enduring this abuse for years, she drove out of her mansion with her two children and began life afresh. She spoke of how her son, who had a medical condition known to the father had to be operated upon and when she called the father, he bluntly told her to bury her child! She sold her only source of income a supermarket and footed his hospital bills.

The husband after went to court and used his financial muscle and connections to win custody of their two children. She had not seen her children in three months hence this story.

She is a broken woman, one who has been failed by the same systems that were put in place to help her, one who is hurting because she has been denied access to her children who are both below 5 years of age, one who came to social media to seek for help because all other doors had been shut in her face! I forgot to mention that the ex-husband is a globally recognized child activist who has won awards!

Stories like this are barely told, we live in a society where a woman has been taught to suffer in silence and never spill family secrets, where a woman has been taught to never walk out of her marriage however violent and abusive it is but rather to stay and pray.

Previously people associated domestic violence to illiterates in the rural areas but nowadays these so-called accomplished gentlemen with many awards and accolades are the ones battering and even killing their wives.

We must admit that Uganda is a failed state, all our systems are failed and a vulnerable person will be lucky to get help from them. What then must we teach the girl child?

Yes we have made strides in giving her an education, what about survival skills, what about building her self-esteem , what about telling her that she does not have to stay in an abusive marriage and can walk away and not be judged? We have heard of parents who close their doors to an abused daughter and forcefully return her to the abusive marriage she has run from.

Then come the religious fanatics whose only advice for such a woman is to pray and fast. Just because something has been happening for generations does not make it alright, women must rise up.

We have the biggest responsibility in raising our sons to grow up into gentlemen, and our daughters to not put up with an abusive man. Why are we letting these violent men walk around freely, they should be brought to book and locked up from society, prisons were built for such characters, who knows they may take the time off to reflect on their actions and come out reformed.

How many women must we bury before we condemn this act? There was the Indian Sharma Kooky who burnt his wife to ashes after beating her up severally, he was locked up in Luzira prison for murder, years later the president granted him amnesty! Imagine such a cold-blooded murderer granted amnesty of all the reformed criminals in Luzira, why him?

We must encourage more women who have suffered abuse to speak up, social media seems to be one of the strongest platforms one can use nowadays, let’s make use of it, because its usually after a story goes viral on social media that it is picked up by newspaper and media houses.

suddenly all those technocrats who should have handled the case get involved and sometimes justice served.
Say No to all forms of Violence!