FWA SEPTEMBER 2021 NARRATIVE REPORT

“I am an orphan, I have only one brother who had refused me to marry my husband but I was so in love that nothing could stop me. He married me poor but after a while he got rich, what triggered the hatred against me; I have twice given birth to children who died. He and his family told me that I am a witch that I did not even have pity on my own children. He built a big house but he refused that I live in it; he rented a two-bedroom house; his room and my room. He told me that there will be no more sex between him and me. One day he burned his clothes despite their value because I washed them. He was such a  kind of man who comes home; you say welcome and he beats you. He called me all bad words, he beat me to see that I can leave him but the aunts told me to persevere.  I think also that the separation is to be looser. I had a pregnancy. Indeed, despite her decision not to have sex with me; there were times that he came into my room. On the day of my birth he did not want to go with me to the hospital. I gave birth to a boy; when he heard that he is a boy, he came to see me with a lot of things for the baby and I was came back home in his car. After a month, he took everything that we had in the house, he beat me a lot. He told me to leave him to marry another woman because when I am on this village according to him no girl can accept him. The local leaders came to intervene but he told them that he did not want me again.

I came to Bujumbura with my child.  I try to survive by myself with a small business. My husband returned home poor 3 years after marrying four women but the past week he kicked me out I left my children. He uses to lock my child the whole day in the house without eating anything. This hurts me in my heart even more than anything.”