HUSBAND BEATEN AND SEXUALLY ABUSED BY WIFE

The few years Martin Njoroge has been married have been the worst of his life. He confesses he has silently suffered sexual abuse.

His scarred face and parts of his body attract endless questions from strangers, friends and family members, forcing him to avoid them because of shame.

When we meet him, he takes a deep breath then opens up on a secret he has kept for six years.

“These scars explain the abuse and assault I have endured in my marriage,” he says.

His wife sells illicit brew in the slums of Kwa Murogi, in Nakuru.  

“People who know me don’t ask about my family but instead enquire about the embarrassing scars that dot my face and body. The latest injury is on my right leg where I’m nursing a deep injury after she attacked me.”

“My wife constantly assaults me. She hurls sexual abuses at me, accusing me of sleeping with other women,” says Mr Njoroge a matatu driver.

He adds: “Instead of my wife hugging me in the morning when I leave for work, she abuses me as I step out of the door,” he says.

The 39-year-old laments that he never knows what to expect when he goes home in the evening.

“But one thing I’m sure of getting is a series of abuses even before I’m given water to bath or food. I have trouble sleeping.”

Community volunteer

He says he feels like a stranger at his home and can’t’ remember the last time he peacefully got his conjugal rights.

The father of five, says he has never talked about the abuse he experiences because of the fear of being judged, misunderstood and ridiculed. The only person he has shared his story with is a community volunteer at Free Area health centre in Nakuru.

“I thought that if I opened up about the sexual abuse I was experiencing, people would think I am mad and I feared being treated like it was my fault,” says Mr Njoroge a resident of Ndimu village, Lanet.

His family too, is unaware of his tribulations.

Mr Njoroge unfortunately, lost his job as a driver as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. He is currently a tout at Free Area matatu terminus.

“I’m determined to provide for my family but the mental and physical torture I go through is stressing me a lot. My marriage has fallen apart,” he says with bitterness in his voice.

“I had big plans for my family. I wanted to give my children the best I could as their father, and was giving my all at my place of work,” Mr Njoroge says.

“All that has been taken away from me. My youthful years have also been taken away from me.”

Out of fear, he left his home because he couldn’t stand being there.

Mr Njoroge says his wife would beat him up and threaten to kill him whenever he failed to provide the family with food.

“I did what I’m supposed to do as the head of the family, but she could still beat me up in the evening and sometimes follow me to my work station, threatening me with a knife, he adds.

“The best thing I have done is to leave her. However, she keeps following me in town and threatens to inflict more harm on me,” says Mr Njoroge.

To the men suffering in silence, he advises them to speak out.

“As a survivor of sexual violence, the experience has paved the way for healing and it is high time men cast off shame, secrecy and the idea that men cannot be victims of sexual harassment and assault.”

“I encourage men to break the silence around the issue of abuse and share their stories,” says Mr Njoroge, noting that it is the only way they can find healing, “ otherwise if they keep to themselves, they risk exposure to greater physical health issues including “self-destructive behaviour, substance abuse, depression, and suicidal ideation among others.”

By Nation Africa