Precious Kiwiti is from Zimbabwe. She was known as a strong woman, running restaurants and catering services successfully, and starting a kindergarten for single mothers. But hardly anyone knew about her well-hidden tragedy. In one of her marriages, Precious was raped, choked, and chained. She even became the victim of a mock execution, where her husband wanted to demonstrate his new gun. Being a survivor, she wants to restore hope, resilience, and dignity in women who have undergone gender-based violence so that they can move beyond a life shadowed by violence. Her organization, Precious Hearts Haven, plans to work towards the elimination of gender-based violence against girls and women in Zimbabwe through establishing safe places for women in emergencies. And she wants even more.
My Journey to Hell and Back
It was a Sunday morning. I had dressed up my children and sent them to church. And then I was alone, alone with myself, my sorrows and my bruises, alone with the understanding that my life should end that day, and that it should be right there in that room, where I had experienced constant psychological and physical terror.
I sat on the floor, leaning on my bed. In my hand, I held a glass with a deadly mixture of pesticides and rat poison. Next to me was my phone; I had just sent a message to my brother. It was a long message in which I begged him to take care of my children and my property, which I had bought without my husband’s knowledge. I was sure that he would read it only after church, and by then, I would be no more.
I remember sitting for some time, waiting for the right moment to lift the glass. And then: “Aunty P!” The door flew open, and my sister-in-law stormed in. She snatched the glass out of my hand, and only then did I start to cry. “Cry, aunty!” she said, comforting me. “Now you may cry! You are safe.”
Five years and two marriages earlier:
“Mwanangu waroorwa, wandibvisa mukushorwa” (my daughter, you are now married; you have got me out of shame). These were the words from my mother on my wedding. The whole congregation started ululating and dancing as they celebrated. I knew that I had made my whole family proud.
Right after my marriage, everything was perfect and in place. We lived in a beautiful house. I had a driver just for my own comfort, and I had wonderful parents-in-law. My husband did everything to make me happy and make me feel at home. Soon I was pregnant, and when my daughter was born, the two of us were overjoyed.
But once love faded away, I came to know what it meant to be a married woman in my society.
Now I look back on two marriages, in which I experienced psychological manipulation and physical torture.
Why did I not see the patterns, the red flags? And why did I not hear the alarm bell ring? Was I deaf and blind, just desperate for someone to love me? Yes, love is always there at the beginning. But then, step by step, the warmth and loving care turn into overprotection. “Don’t go out alone. Your family needs you, and you should not endanger yourself”. “Why do you need to work? I can take care of you and our child!”
I was always striving for independence. I was the first woman in my family to hold a driver’s license. I was the first to travel abroad. And at the age of 26, I, together with my brother, opened a restaurant with more than 100 seats. When my brother passed away in a car accident, I was forced to close it down, not because I was not strong enough to run it by myself but because my husband would worry about my safety. Wait, did he really?
Slowly but steadily, protection turns into control. “Who did you call?”, “How much did you spend?”
After becoming a housewife, I had to ask for everything, and I had to explain every expense. I felt caged, and the new experience of being dependent hampered my self-esteem. Wanting to do something, I begged my husband to allow me to work at least on my weekends. He agreed but under strict conditions. Being a businesswoman, I started a catering service which became very successful. But then, the phone calls started: “Where are you?”, “Why don’t your clients let you come home?”
It doesn’t take long before that control turns into possessiveness. “You have to come home when I tell you!”
I often felt lonely. I was not able to maintain my friendships or my relationship with my family, and I had no freedom to work and earn my own income. I lost weight, not because I wanted to but because I had lost my life. My husband’s interpretation was a different one: “Do you want to look attractive? See how the young men are staring at you!”, “If you don’t wear loose clothes or gain weight, I won’t let you go out anymore.”
The first physical push crosses all boundaries. Here, possessiveness turns bit by bit into violence. But apologies calm you down: “I am sorry! I didn’t want to do that! Can you forgive me?” I should have said “stop!” right there and then. But I believed his words of remorse and thus gave him a license to continue. And here started the path of brutality, from which there was no way back: I experienced beatings so brutal that I should have been brought to the hospital, but to protect my husband’s reputation, I stayed home and cooled my wounds myself. I was raped while being choked and chained, fearing for my life.
I even became the victim of a mock execution. My husband wanted to demonstrate his new toy, a gun. I kept a safe distance, watching him with suspicion. He aimed at a tree on my left, but at the last second, he swung his gun around, aimed at me and then fired a bullet slightly above my head, hitting another tree. Again and again, questions kept running through my head:
Where could I go? Back to my parents? But what would the community say about me failing two marriages?!
And what about those who had always admired my strength? Would they now look down on me? How could I raise my children when I had to start all over again?
If I became single, would men mistake me for a prostitute?
In Zimbabwe, our tradition and culture would have just encouraged me to hang on in there, bruised as I was. Yes, marriage, in our culture, is seen and accepted as “legalized” slavery. An elderly woman advised me to give in and pretend that everything was just fine. “After all, you are a Christian, and God is with you!”
Well, although God was with me, my self-confidence was shattered, and I felt as if I was wearing an “abuse me” sticker on my forehead.
What helped me was sharing my pain with my family and friends. And I survived due to the love I had for my children.
When my brothers reminded me of how my sister had been killed by her husband, I realized that I deserved something better.
I gathered my courage and said enough is enough and called off the marriage.
Of course, I did not heal overnight. But I passed through hell and back, and today, I can boldly say, “I am a survivor”.
But let me take you on a journey into the future of how we want to transform Zimbabwe with the intervention of Precious Hearts Haven in fighting the epidemic of violence and abuse against women and girls.
We have a three-step approach:
Step 1: Precious Hearts Haven: A temporary safe place for women and girls who need a place to hide and heal. Women suffering from violence in their marriage can seek refuge in our houses with their children for a limited time. Additionally, we offer, if required, legal assistance and psychological counselling.
Step 2: Transition to life: After the phase of healing, the women will be ready to enroll in empowering workshops. While meeting other “survivors” in different stages of life, they will be confronted with a program that includes nonviolent communication and self-defence. Additionally, we will train them on detecting red flags to prevent further oppression through violence.
Step 3: Kubatana (meaning connect): Once women are empowered to take their lives in their own hands, we offer them an intense training with the focus on hospitality. From my own experience running a restaurant, I know how food connects and opens people’s minds. Thus, we want to create a Kubatana restaurant chain with smaller and larger places where people can meet and eat, a safe haven for connecting through food and communicating in peace. Our women will be trained to run these places and will thereby return to society as independent, self-reliant human beings.
NOTE THE DATES: on the 17th and 18th of December 2021: Precious as well as 15 other kantharis will share their personal journeys and solutions for social issues that have affected them, with the public during kanthari TALKS Precious will be speaking in the 6th session title Change From Within on the 18th of December. More details about her and the other speakers and the timings of the event that will be live streamed, can be found on http://www.kantharitalks.org/ Thank you for sharing this post and this link.
