Raeli’s Story

Many women who begin to realise their rights experience suffering and conflict as a result.
Raeli married at thirteen and lived happily with her husband until she started to work for PWC teaching reading and writing to groups of women. While she offered her services for free her husband did not object but when she began to receive a salary for her work he demanded all the money from her. He gave the money to his brothers leaving them with no food, in order, he claimed, to stop her becoming proud. She also received daily beatings and was frequently forced to run for help to the village elders.

In 2002 Raeli’s husband began to pressurise the groups that she taught to stop attending or to demonstrate against her. She was forced to leave and teach in other surrounding villages where her husband could not prevent her. Raeli’s desperation at her husband’s treatment forced her to leave her husband and to stay at his uncle’s boma. “I don’t even know why I wear clothes because my husband tries to humiliate me in any way by telling everyone inside and outside of me. He would tell people that I suffer from venereal diseases and so many other things that I can’t mention.”

When asked why she did not seek help from her own parents, Raeli said that her parents wanted her back without her children of 5 years and 3 years. This is something Raeli considered impossible. “I love my children and leaving them in my husband’s hands means total suffering. A child is very sweet. If it were not for them I would have left him a long time ago.”