Happy abuser�s day

Tumie Modise | Monday December 7, 2015 16:26

Child abuse, sexual and domestic violence are among the most destructive experiences afflicting women and children.

The prevalence of such violence takes an enormous toll on the lives of individual victims as well as the larger society, through innumerable behavioral, health, psychological, and economic consequences.

Many groups, organisations and government agencies have been established to identify and treat such violence. But for agencies such as Emang Basadi, women shelters, Childline and even law enforcement agencies (police and courts), responses to these problems have been piecemeal and not optimally successful.

Children aside, violence against women takes many forms - physical, sexual, economic, and psychological - but all of these represent a violation of human dignity and human rights and have long-lasting consequences both for women themselves and for their communities.

In the face of all this, we are now supposed to put everything on hold and commemorate the 16 days.

Every single one of us has at some point experienced such violence against women and children, either as victims or as witnesses. We have all seen that lady at work, the one that returns to work every Monday, especially at month end, with a bruised face and arms.

Such people have perfected the art of lying, when asked, mostly out of concern; they usually give well-rehearsed excuses, about walking into doors or walls. They usually sound very convincing too!

Before anyone screams “Tumy is mocking abused women!” I am not, far from it. I have figured out that sympathising with the said victims isn’t the best strategy.

Yes, you give them a shoulder to cry on, offer them tea and biscuits then what? They go back to the boxing rings they call their homes and the following day you are back to square one and in the meantime, your biscuit supply is quickly running out. I always have a simplistic approach to life, to everything. I do not believe in complicating things for myself, for this world is already complicated.

A friend of mine calls mine a pedestrian mentality. Guilty as charged! For example, and I know I may get castigated for this, whenever I feel and see that I have gained a few extra pounds, I don’t stress over diet concoctions or hitting the Western bypass.

I simply stop eating, that’s it. I will only resume normal eating after I lose the offending pounds. I have programmed my body and mind like that. So my simplistic approach is that whenever something suffocates me I free myself, it is as simple as that.

So back to the issue of abuse, my honest take is that there is no hope for such perpetrators, most are beyond redemption. Dragging them before parents, to courts, to counsellors is a complete waste of time, especially when the victim is still within their reach.

 I know many women who have been severely beaten after visits to counsellors the moment they stepped back into their homes.

The unlucky ones don’t live to tell their tales. Sadly, praying for these people, in my view, is simply trying God. I hope this isn’t blasphemous. I don’t know about other people but I have long discovered how God works. He listens when you pray for real things, stuff that will actually benefit YOU.

There is just no way that you will walk into a bar, drag a drunkard home, later he beats you up to a pulp then you expect God to perform miracles on that psychopath, have  Him turn him into the next angel Gabriel.

God doesn’t work like that! The only way I am ever going to pray for a psychopath, the one that deliberately makes my life miserable, will only be when I ask God to speed up his appointment with St. Peter. I am not joking about this.

So here we are once more, apparently we should, for the next two weeks, pay homage to abusers, beg them to hold their fire for at least two weeks, like they are even listening!

If it were according to me, this activism would be for the liberation of abused women and children. I would offer a decree that gives them the two weeks to evacuate themselves and their children from the warzones they call homes.

But that is just my pedestrian way of looking at things, which I must add, has sustained me this far in life! There is nothing satisfying as being liberated. It’s priceless.