Savitri wants peace after living with abusive husband since she was 13

Savitri was just thirteen years old when she met her husband, and now after more than thirty years of “living hell” she is finally prepared to call it quits with a man she claimed has abused her mentally, emotionally and physically for as long as she can remember.

There is no romantic story behind how she took up with the man she later married, and she said while many might question how she stayed with someone who even attempted to sexually abuse her daughter they would first need to live her life and walk in her shoes.

“It was always ups and downs; I tell you, I can’t remember any nice time we had,” Savitri told the Sunday Stabroek in a recent emotional interview.

She was the one who contacted this reporter to “tell my story so other women can see,” and she is not ashamed to have her name printed along with that of her husband. However, because of the charges she has levelled against the man, including him sexually abusing her two younger sisters when they were children, this newspaper decided to not reveal the couple’s identity.

Her husband was nineteen years old when he went to her community – a riverain area in Region 7 – to work, and he never left. She was thirteen and they struck up a relationship, and he remains the only man she has even known.

Thirty-two-years after she worked “like a dog” and assisted in establishing a gold-mining business in the interior, owned a small hotel and other businesses, she finds that she is still kept like a pauper by the man with whom she has four children. Even though she is ready to walk away from the relationship, Savitri said she has to first take legal action to ensure that she will be provided for.

“Right now I cannot even access any money from the bank; anything I want he gat to go with me to the bank to get the money. My big son telling me not to leave the house, to stay in the house and the father guh stay in the bush, but I don’t know what to really do,” the woman said.

‘Never love’

Savitri does not believe she was ever in love with her husband, but rather that he represented a way of getting out from her poverty-stricken home environment. And even though life was never a bed of roses with him, she always felt that she could not have done better. In recent years she felt it would have been unfair to walk away with nothing when she had sacrificed blood, sweat and tears to help build their business.

But when last week he dealt her a “first class licking” with a chair arm in front of her 14-year-old daughter, 12-year-old grandson and two employees, she decided that enough is enough. He even took away the money she had in her possession along with some raw gold before leaving for the interior.

“He lef we with nothing to eat; I talking to you right now me and the children have nothing to eat. Imagine a big businesswoman like me starving,” the woman said.

A day later her 31-year-old son sent money for her, and when she spoke to this newspaper later she reported, “at least the children have things to eat.”

She reported the last beating to the police, who briefly arrested her husband when he returned from the interior, but Savitri does not know if she wants to go to court; she just wants “what is me share and to live in peace.”

She suspected that her husband was too close to their neighbour, but it was only after the woman confided in her that they were indeed having a relationship that her suspicion was confirmed.

“The woman come to me and tell me that she sorry because she see how he does treat me. She tell me how deh having a relationship and how he does pay she rent for thirty thousand dollars and he does give she money fuh she and she children.”

The woman said she was not shocked at the revelation, since she knows what her husband is like, but she was angry that he was giving their money away and starving her and their young daughter.

“And suh is when I ask he about it is then he beat me and tek away the money and the gold. And cuss me up and I was so shame, because I had two cooks going in deh backdam with me and I couldn’t even go outside how I shame,” the woman said.

What hurt her was that her husband also verbally abused their 14-year-old daughter who intervened on her behalf and told him that he was wrong to beat her.

“He cuss she up too, and I tell she how is f…. he went and f…. with the neighbour and my grandson was there too,” the woman related.

Before she reported the matter, her husband made a report to the station claiming that she had stolen his gold and money; however, when the rank visited the home he later informed her husband that there was nothing he could do since they were married and the businesses were jointly owned.

‘Fallen’

Last week’s beating was one of the many times she was physically abused by the man and Savitri recalled one beating which caused her to be hospitalized, and the man told the doctor that she had fallen and hurt herself.

“That time he nearly kill me; I went to the hospital unconscious but the doctor call deh police but nothing ain’t really come out of deh story because I just lef it so.”

Savitri recalled that in the earlier days her husband sexually abused her then ten and eleven-year-old sisters. She herself was just around fifteen at the time, and while she knew it was wrong she did not report the incidents. Her father had passed away and she was helping out her mother by having the girls live with her.

“And dem time we ain’t had no law; we been living till up in the river, in bush, no police ain’t went around deh.”

But when her daughter was 13-years -old he made “three attempts on her and is he mek the girl marry out early, early. Up to yesterday she been talking about it and she wondering if he is really she father because of wah he do.”

According to the woman the first time she was at home when her husband “try a thing.”

“I been sleeping and then I hear she
hollering, ‘Mommy look daddy in hay and he gat he hand in me panty.‘ So I ask he how he guh put he hand in the child panty and he tell me how he looking for something and I ask he wha he looking for in she panty and with that he start beating me,” the woman recalled.

They were at that time “living in deh bush area and we ain’t really had neighbour and so on” and she never reported the matter.

Her daughter told her of two other attempts: one time she was in Suriname to do business, and her nephew stopped him.

“I know people might say I is a bad mother but they can’t understand, but right now me and me daughter get a good relationship and she tell me is time to leave she father and get some peace.”

The forty-five year-old woman also recalled that for many years she worked paddling along the river selling food.

“I use to wake up at to in deh morning cook and den go out and sell and then when we start doing business in the bush I been deh working even and straight with he.”

Now all she wants is some peace, and she wants to enjoy her children and grandchildren, but she also wants to live comfortably.

“I don’t love him, I never love him and I want me peace.”