By Promise Amegadzie:
Intimate Partner Violence, (IPV) is most traumatizing to many women who suffer it in silence. The question that comes to mind, relates to why women should be taken through such inhumane forms of experience.
Women suffer different forms of abuse in relationships and marriages. Most victims continue to stay in those relationships and marriages despite the pain they go through.
This is a situation perhaps that can only be understood and explained by the victims; vis a vis why they have chosen to remain in those relationships and marriages despite how abusive they are handled.
The World Health Organization, in the year 2010, defined IPV to include physical, sexual, emotional abuse and controlling behaviors by an intimate partner.
What we must understand is that, as a woman, a wife, a mother, a sister, or a daughter, we belong to families. Our families, therefore, put a lot of importance on us.
If a male intimate partner should one way or the other, take us through such barbaric experiences, that person must be made to face the full rigors of the law. This must not be endured no matter the abuser’s status in society. This will serve as a deterrent to others.
The reason being that this same male intimate partner must be seen protecting us rather than abusing us.
Physical abuse includes hitting, beating, and kicking with leg(s) and mostly, results in irreparable injuries.
We must not forget that these forms of male intimate abuses in most cases have grave consequences on victims, mostly their mental well-being.
A few days ago, we woke up to the sad news of a businessman allegedly killing his wife in their residence at East Legon.
This is according to the Accra Regional Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Effia Tengey.
Information revealed that the father of the deceased said a day before the incident, his daughter had complained to him about being severely assaulted by her husband. In this case, we would expect her family to have done more than just listening to her complaints.
Again, just yesterday, social media was awash with stories of a young man, Kumah Philip Ceasar, who is alleged to have assaulted his girlfriend, Yesutor Elizabeth Akpalu, leading to her death in the Volta Regional capital of Ho.
I am of the view that the world is not doing enough for us because a lot of attention is not being given to solutions to this problem.
What we must do as women is to not remain silent on these abuses and end up becoming helpless in the hands of our attackers.
I, therefore, encourage women to be strong and courageous enough to rise up for the time is now! Our families, children, and society need us alive!. We can only be able to take care of our children and other members of our families when we are alive!. Our women must be empowered economically so that they are self-reliant and with that, some of these situations would be curtailed.
Our legal frameworks and judicial systems must be seen to be working in a direction that would protect our women, making perpetrators face full rigors of the law amongst others. We must make a decision “to leave to enable us to live”.
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The writer, Promise Amegadzie is a Ghanaian Health Worker and a concerned citizen.
She can be reached through angelpromisea@gmail.com
