He beat her out of love

2017

She was kicked and pulled by the hair at 2:00 pm in public.
He thought she was lacking in discipline.
For the longest time, she thought this was an act of love.
When she started to fight back and defend herself, he would beat her even harder.

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Be Yourself

2016

I’m 32 years old.
I’m divorced, and I don’t have any children.
When I turned 32, everyone pressured me into getting married.
I honestly wasn’t really looking forward to it.

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HIV Positive

2017

I am a 23-year-old guy.
I come from a well-known family.
I graduated a year ago from business school.
From the moment I was born,
My life has been full of suffering.
My father was very harsh on me and my siblings,
But I was almost the only one affected by his cruelty.
He used to beat me over the smallest mistakes.
He used to humiliate me,
Call me names in front of people,
And degrade me in front of my friends.

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Make me food woman

2017

My father was a difficult man.
He didn't like us girls.
He only liked the boys.

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I Understand Now

2017

I’m in my late twenties.
When I was 5 years old,
Something happened that made me quite mad at my parents.
I saw baba beating mama.
I remember sitting on the floor in their room crying,
terrified of the violence I was witnessing.
She fell next to me when he was beating her.

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He Saw Him Hitting Me

2019

I had just turned thirty.
Fifteen years ago,
It wasn’t normal to be single at the age of thirty.
At every wedding I went to, my aunts would tell me,
“We hope you’re next, dear.
May God reward your patience.”
They’d say it with sorrowful eyes,
You know the look.
domestic violence, gender violence, physical violence, motherhood, marriage, divorce

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Beaten Up For No Reason

2017

I’m the only girl among my siblings.
One time when I was in elementary school,
My parents were going out to buy some stuff,
And they told my older brother
To keep an eye on me and our younger brother until they came back.
My older brother waited for them to come back outside the apartment,
And I waited with him.

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Men and I

2008

When I’m alone, pondering my rejection of this rotten, patriarchal world, I wonder if my opinions truly are extreme.
I mean, so what if my uncle divorced his wife five times?
And what's wrong with my other uncle being married to three women at the same time?
And why is it a big deal that my aunt was once beaten up with a pair of flip flops for refusing to make a cup of tea for her
husband, who was lazing in front of the TV watching a football match while she was busy scrubbing the bathroom floor?

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A Life of Hardship

2017

My father never treated me as if I were worthy of respect.
This has led to many hardships in my life.
I used to love him so much.
He married another woman when I was 13.
I felt lost then.
I was broken.

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A Week of Hell

2017

My parents separated when I was young.
My mom, my sister, and I were living happily after the separation,
Until my mom got remarried.
I couldn’t bear living with her when she got married,
So my father sent me to live with my grandma.
I wish I had never gone.
My grandmother and aunt both gave me a hard time.
I would cry myself to sleep every day,
Because of how they treated me.

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