Mary Makukula was serially abused by her husband for decades. In 2008, his blows were hard enough to knock out her two front teeth.

Mary’s neighbours, who had closed their eyes and ears to the abuse for years, could no longer ignore what was going on in the Makukula household, and staged an intervention. With the support of friends, Mary finally struck up the courage to report her husband to the local police, and a few months later, she divorced him.

“He was a very jealous man. He always thought I was going with other men in the village, and would beat me to try to get me to confess,” she says. “Sometimes months would go by and he wouldn’t lay a finger on me, and other times, the beatings would be regular. I was afraid of him.”

Violence against women is a physical manifestation of the subordination of women to men in Zambian society. A Gender Based Violence Survey Report carried out by the Zambian Central Statistical Office in 2006 found that more than half of all married women in Zambia have been beaten or abused by their husbands, and almost two thirds of both men and women believe that wife beating is justified in certain circumstances, for example if she has been unfaithful, or neglected her children.

Women are taught from an early age that what happens inside the home should stay inside the home, and that the relationship between husband and wife is no one’s business other than their own. Speaking about their relationship to others can be used as justification for divorce.

These social restrictions kept Mary silent for decades, but since the divorce, Mary has joined the Mtenguleni Women’s Group for widows, and now speaks openly about the abuse. While the beatings were happening, however, she never spoke to anyone about it, though she admits now that most people in the community would have been aware of what was going on.

“There is a big problem with domestic abuse against women here in the villages,” says her friend and fellow group member Rosemary Banda. “But it is rarely spoken about. Women are too afraid to tell other women what is happening to them, they fear their husbands will only beat them harder.”

Women can report abuse to the village council, which consists of the village head man and his ndunas and other elders. The council can then call upon the man to explain himself, and also impose sanctions upon him if they believe he has mistreated his wife. However, as the council is exclusively male, and the sanctions almost entirely ineffective at stopping abuse permanently, many women are simply too intimidated to make a complaint.

Both Mary and Rosemary believe that the community must be sensitised about gender based violence, and children should be taught from an early age that all people, regardless of gender, should be treated with the respect they deserve.

“I hope that more awareness and education could help women in the future,” Mary says. “There are some men who change, who see sense with age, and I had hoped that my husband would be one of those men. But there are others who are born like a twisted tree that will never be straightened. They will be like this until they die. There is no changing them.”

You can read more about the Mtenguleni Women’s group in a previous post here.