“I feel bad because they come out of my belly. When I was younger I take care of them and now they get big they turn they back on me. Is all them years I getting abuse and now I want to try and live me life in peace like they want me stay with dem father and tek more abuse.”
Fifty-year-old Kamanie Persaud said she has suffered over 30 years of abuse at the hands of her husband with whom she shares six children. She is attempting to leave, but so far it has been difficult. She has been forced to abandon her home, which she said she built with support from her extended family. Her children and her husband’s family have not been supportive of her since she reported his last attack to the police, and he was charged.
“Now all of them turn against me. Many a days they had nothing to eat and I used to have to try because dem father used to just drink and now look how they treating me. I done tell them they could always get more husbands and wives, but they could never get back a mother,” she said of her children.
She has four sons and two daughters and the pain in her voice was evident.
“Imagine Mother’s Day none of them didn’t even call me. I punish a lot with them…,” she continued.
“I used to do domestic work. I can’t go now because I am afraid of the man. I am afraid of him. He never had a permanent job. When he get work, he work and sometimes for a whole month he had no job and is me lil money or whatever support I get from family is suh we survive,” the woman said almost in tears.
“Thirty-three years I going through this…,” she added. She left her home in February after the man attempted to douse her with gasoline and threatened to take her life. She reported the matter to the Fort Wellington Police Station, but officers there were not helpful in arresting the man. It took months before he was arrested and when he was placed before the court she was not informed, and he was released on $15,000 bail.
“Dem nah bin want help to go in de house to collect me documents and so, because is me brother I come way by and I did want some things. Dem tell me how is de man house and how dey cannot send nobody with me. I tell them dey must be want watch me lie down in the grave because de man would kill me. I also tell them is me personal house,” she said of her experience with the police.
At the time her youngest daughter and her daughter’s husband, who is a police officer, were staying at the house.
“When I call me daughter, she well and behave at a rate and start to behave like I is a child. She said she didn’t want to even take on anybody stress and she hang up the phone,” Persaud said.
After the man was arrested, his sister called Persaud and asked her to beg the police to release him.
“They feel for dem brother and nobody sorry for me,” she lamented.
Just nineteen
Persaud said she was just 19 years old when she met the man.
I asked her if the relationship was a good one at the beginning.
“If it was good? It was terrible! From the starting, he was a alcoholic and he does drink sometimes he would drink a whole week,” she answered.
So why did you remain with him? I asked.
“Well dem time duh when you get you husband, you know, you don’t lef them. But when it used to get bad, I used to go back by me parents dem and den I use to go back. I can’t even tell you why I stay all dem years but now I just want lil peace. A tired and I just feel sick,” she said.
“I used to still bear up. Nuff times I used to come away to my mother with me small children. The three big ones, I get dem one after de other. I used to go way and come back, go away and come back. It was hard, hard. I used to say I punish in me young life, now I old I have to punish again,” she continued.
She said over the years he even prevented her from visiting her relatives and accused her of infidelity.
“He would drink every day; sleep, wake up and go and look for more rum. He just drinking, drinking all the time. He would come home fighting for food and when he see nothing he say your so and so can’t cook. Sometimes he would walk around de place and cuss from dog to cat, everybody getting cuss,” the woman shared.
It became so overbearing, Persaud said, that she had a nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalised.
“And now like this thing telling on me nerves again and that is why I have to just get out and get some peace. When I get the nervous breakdown de man never even come and see me,” she said.
It was because she started to feel sick that she decided in February to spend some time with her relatives and that decision triggered the attack with the gasoline. The woman said she saw her husband with the gasoline in a container and she informed her son who lives in a house behind them and the young man spoke to him.
However, the man followed her as she left the house threatening to throw the gasoline and burn her to death.
“I start to run and this man running behind me and is a neighbour yard I run in and he been coming behind me and she tell not to come in de yard. Is she son who been cleaning he bus who talk to he and ask if he know wah he playing with and tell he nah guh bun me in dem yard,” she recounted.
“Is suh he lef and I beg dem to call a taxi and I go to Fort Wellington Station and report de matter and dem didn’t treat me good at all. I come to Georgetown and end up in de hospital and I was teking saline because me body was so weak. And you know when I call one a me daughter dem she say how she don’t want nobody fatigue she. Yes, that is what she said,” Persaud said as she started to cry.
She related that she later returned to Berbice to ask the police to assist her in uplifting her personal documents and she got the royal runaround.
“I was at de station from 9 till 3 pm and I was like so hungry and I just say I would go by me self because of de push around. I call me son and tell he how I coming. I went and this man go down on he knees and hold bible and telling me how he guh change, but I tell he how I don’t want he anymore.
“He say how if he can’t get me nobody can’t get me and when I call de taxi he cuss de man [taxi driver] and chase he away. I go downstairs to go, and this man hold on to me and throw me down like a dog and start to beat me. If you see how he cuff me up. He was coming with a two by four wood to lash me and I start to scream and is then me son run downstairs and he lef and go away. Me son and me daughter-in-law ain help me.
I had to crawl and call another taxi and I was crying so bad and he carry me back to the Fort Wellington Station. When I walk in all dem police stop wah dey doing and staring at me because of me condition.
“Dem asking me wah I go by me self for and how it coulda been more worse. But I blaming de police because if dem been go with me, he wouldn’t a get to beat me up. I couldn’t move… dem put me in a chair and de next thing I know I was in the Fort Wellington Hospital teking saline,” she shared.
Even though she was hospitalised, the woman said, she had difficulty getting the police to investigate and to even uplift the medical report from the hospital. A welfare officer went with her to the station and according to Persaud, “dem police was like when a pig drop piglets and all a dem screaming. All a dem talking like if I is de bad one and the welfare officer had to tell them dat I was de victim,” she continued.
Seeking peace
Now that the matter is before the court, she said it very difficult for her to find money to travel to Berbice from Georgetown.
However, since her story was reported in Monday’s edition of this newspaper, Persaud said, she received a call from an official at the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security and she has since had a meeting with the woman.
“I tell her everything and she listen and she ask me if I frighten to go to court alone and I tell she how I lil nervy and she tell me she guh see if she get one a she colleagues from Berbice to go with me. Because I know he guh get he family and me children will be in court to support he. My brother sick and my sister break she foot so dem can’t go with me,” she said.
Persaud related that she has also obtained a restraining order against the man, which he has violated several times.
“I can’t figure it out. What he get bail for? I don’t want this man for nothing. This man even jumping over wall to have sex with me. The man stink, stink, peeing he self, the whole place smelling very bad. And when I don’t want to be with he, he forcing he self on me and I just want some peace,” she pleaded.
“He say if he can’t get me nobody can’t get me he would kill me and kill he self. I prefer God take my life not mankind. I know this man bad enough he would kill me and now they telling me to go back with him. No, I would not be going back.
“One a me son dem call me and telling me how me and dey father big now and how we behaving suh. But like he not seeing wah he father doing to me. How I could continue to live in misery?
“I never get happiness from this man. Never! For 33 years I live in stress all the time. The whole neighbourhood know the story. I want to go in my own house, but I don’t want this man around me. Two and a half years now my house finish, and he didn’t do nothing to help me.
“Me girl all I want is lil peace. I deh good by me brother and he and he children treating me good, but you know I want be in me own house. But I can’t go there if this man is still on de road.”
This sister deserves some peace. I hope justice is served and the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security gives her the help she needs.
