NO TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

 

SURVIVING FOR THE LOVE of MUM

Based on a True Story and a reminder to fathers!

 

The year 2007 was pivotal in Papua New Guinea.

It was election year. High on the agenda of many intending candidates were sweeteners like ‘I will fight corruption’, or ‘I am running to save mothers and children’ and many other promises.

The one that brought hope to my mother was to do with family sexual violence and a law to protect children.

My father was away for the elections when he got a phone call about the birth of his baby daughter - me.

Dad adored me. I was the apple of his eye. They say that last born are usually lucky. They seem to be cherished by their parents; they get the best part of their parent’s attention. I certainly did until one day when something went terribly wrong.

But firstly, my parents were married in the traditional way, when my father’s people paid bride price to my mother’s relatives. Mum is from the New Guinea Islands and dad is from the mainland of PNG.

We are four siblings, my two brothers and my elder sister and I. We were happy, the four of us, and our parents were loving and caring.

My growing up with my parents was all loving and we were happy then. My father never for once laid a hand on myself or my older sibling; he looked after us with love. Our mother was very caring and always gentle with a loving heart. We grew up in a God-fearing home. Both my maternal grandparents and father’s family were devoted Christians.

Life was good until my father started hanging out with the wrong group of friends. They would drink, and do things that began to chip away at our family unit.

Our happy family began to crumble. Our lives changed. Worst of all, our once loving dad, became a raging uncompromising beast. We were loveless, sleepless and helpless from the monster our father had turned into. We all were fearful, more so our dear mother, who had to endure horrendous endless bloody beatings.

Mum was beaten up very badly every night, for no reason at all; no-one dared to stop our raging father, not even the neighbours. We would wake up in the morning and see that our mother’s face was all swollen up like a balloon.  This went on for a long time and this was scary. I sometimes think mum endured this horror because of us that she stayed on with our father. She would put on an act, as if she was OKAY, but inside she was hurt, shattered, both physically and emotionally.

Psychologically she was a wreck. A tormented soul, crying out silently for help.

Through all this pain and torment, our brave mum hung on, hoping against all hope, that this nightmare would go away and we would be that happy family again.

But it did not go away. It was in the beginning of 2013, in January, my father nearly took our mother away from us. She was so badly beaten that her life was barely hanging by a thread. I thank the good Lord for His mercies and saving grace.

We woke up one morning and mum was not there. Our worst fears gripped our little hearts. Unknown to us, after a severe thrashing, she was rushed to the hospital by our father and admitted in Port Moresby General Hospital. It was her home for three months where she was dumped and left to recover from a broken leg and bruises on her face with a deep cut to her head.

We never knew our mother was in hospital, neither did our grandparents.  One night our father decided to take my big sister and I to the hospital. My sister was 10 and I was just 6 years old. It was very scary walking to the hospital bed and seeing our mother in a cast and bandages around her head. Our father told us that she had been in a car accident but we knew for sure that he had put her there. 

How do you expect a 10-year-old and a six-year-old to feel in a hospital? There were sick people everywhere and your mother is laying there among them, almost unrecognisable. To be honest, we were scared of the man who took us there, and of the cruelty which had betrayed our affection for fatherly love.

And we were scared that the woman in the cast and bandaged head might not even recover.

But deep within us, we sense a sense of belonging to our mother’s bosom, and that she could not speak but still felt our presence, our being there would spark her recovery. Little tears of fear, of sadness, and gladness rolled down our cheeks.

Soon our mother was discharged and we went back to live with our father whose demeanour did not change. The pain was there, the threat to our mother’s life was constant, the cries were tormenting, and her eyes were bluish black, the blood splattered horrific torture continued.

He just went back to beating her while she was in crutches and in deep pain. This went on for another two months, the beating and suffering we endured with our dear mother.  She loved us so much that she endured all the pain our father gave her. One night, our good Lord must have finally heard her cries.

Our father went for a night out and we escaped from our tormentor. It was like breaking out of a prison.

That dark moonless night we escaped to our grandparent’s place, our mother hobbling on crutches and stumbling unsteadily into our grandparents’ yard with great fear and desperation written in our eyes.

When our ‘bubus’ both saw their daughter and granddaughters walk into the yard, they both broke down and cried.

Our grandfather was totally shocked and sobbed big old tears, his heart wrenched by his inability to protect his daughter and granddaughters.  All this time both my two big brothers had been growing up with our grandparents.

They never for once knew what a terrible experience our father was inflicting on our mother. And the painful trauma he was causing us, mum, me, big sis and the boys.

Our brothers were in disbelief and confused when they saw the battered, almost lifeless body of mama. The day we escaped was the day our mother never looked back, as she had all four of us under her wings.

I have been living with my mother and three older siblings for the past 9 years now. I am now 15 years old and perhaps, old enough as a teenager to understand that no other child my age should be suffer the indignity and endure such misery and harrowing days of my childhood.

I don’t ever want to hear of a similar traumatic experience happen to another child and his or her mother.

I know it was the Lord’s plan that he spared our mother’s life. She is a wonderful and a very strong woman who not only looks after us her children, but also her parents.  I am blessed that the good Lord saved our mother from being a victim within her family.

I am happy that I now live a life that is free of violence because of the decision that our mother made by walking out for good from the violence filled relationship with our father. 

I don’t know if our father was jealous, or was affected by alcohol or drugs to cause so much pain. In PNG, there are so many horror stories like mine, and my beloved mother, of many broken families.

There are laws to protect women and children from abusive relationships and I thank the Government for enacting the Lukautim Pikinini Act to protect women and innocent children. This law should also make man realise that marriage is a very important institution and family unit of mother, father, sons and daughters, are a blessing from our loving Father in Heaven.

I know that when I grow up, I will want to find a partner with a good heart, a man who does not drink alcohol, smoke, chew ‘buai’, gamble and curse, and is arrogantly drawn to the pleasures of the world instead of to his family.

I will be strong in my faith and prayerfully keep watch for a man who fears only God, someone who is respectful, loving and caring and will never raise his hand or voice against his lifetime partner and their children.

I don’t want to experience the trauma my mum experienced and certainly I do not want my children to experience the pain I felt.

You might ask, do I dislike my father? Well, I came into this world because of the union of my father and mother. I am writing this because of his actions at that time. The Bible says that Jesus died for our sins; God gave His only Son to redeem our sins.

If I don’t forgive my father, then I am questioning the power of God’s redemption. Yes, I have to learn to forgive, just as God forgives our sins. Love is a powerful tool, love endures, love never fails!

 

Submitted as a high school project paper, names and certain events have been edited to protect the young person who wrote of her experience!