IS THIS A GOOD REASON ?

A few years ago, a woman was walking innocently into the animated streets of Adjame’s market (in Abidjan), under a shining sun, when she suddenly received a very hot slap. She was stunned. Her bag was then snatched by a husky guy with bulging muscles who had already started to search frantically inside it shouting: "It is because of the mobile phone I bought to you that you are misbehaving like this!" 

The woman tried to fight with the man to retrieve her bag but he continued to hit her again and again. To intrigued passers-by who were making an attempt to stop him or get more information from him, the man explained that the woman was his wife. She had left the matrimonial home for days, leaving him and the children hopeless and without any news, to go running after men all over town with the mobile phone that he himself had bought for her. 

This statement was sufficient enough for people to go away and mind their own business, some of them even saying that it was a good lesson for the lady. “

"Abidjan’s women are too wicked! They need more of this treatment!” 

“Can you imagine? Leaving your husband and children like this! "

The poor Lady tried to explain that she was not in any way related to this guy, that she did not know him. But, all her efforts were vain, nobody made a move. She was beaten and robbed by this thief. 

A few days ago, a cab dropped a friend in a street near the “city of arts”. It was around 20 o’clock. She was going back home as she is leaving near the University Hospital of Cocody. A very well-built man, with athletic shoulders and a well-developed chest, popped out of some hidden places and violently struck down a large piece of wood on her head. Shocked, the young woman was thrown like a common bag of rice on his powerful shoulders. To passers-by who asked why such a demonstration of violence he explained that she was his girlfriend. 

Bleeding from the head, on the verge of fainting, it was impossible for the young woman to speak. And the words of the gangster were enough to make the curious go away. He took her to a dimly lit alley, with certainly the intention to rape her, because he began to tear her clothes apart wildly. It was so close for the worst to happen, when a group of young men came near them. The guy ran away with the girl’s bag. She is in the hospital, traumatized, bruised, head half-shaved, sutured. 

So, I am wondering know if my vision of the relationship between husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, is not wrong! Does the fact to say "yes" to a guy either before the Mayor or during a walk after a good plate of fufu, gives him the right to beat you like a mad man everywhere ? Is it a good reason?

Anyway, the attitude of those passers-by showed it very well. Just because you are the girlfriend of X or the legal wife of Y, he can make you his punching-ball and hit you over and over again with the first cudgel which falls into his hands! This link which is sometimes only verbal, leading to an union that one of my law professors called "free-union", gives to the male the power of life and death over the one who had the misfortune to succumb to a smile, a look, a gesture ... a lie. 

See now how because of this wrong, distorted, malformed view people have on the male/female relationship, a view we don’t even know the origin, women are victims of abuse before the very eyes of everyone. They are an easy target for the libido or the madness of any guy a little bit zealous or insane. 

I really hope that in both cases, it is not the foolish excuses of the aggressors that pushed people not to intervene, but rather their impressive shape and big muscles. It is true that if you are not strong enough, you cannot go there to play the hero and be beaten also with the victim. But you can and you must ring the alarm, alert people, try to gather a little group of person (it can intimidate the assailant) or search for someone who is physically stronger, to help the poor lady. Some people are saying: “sometimes when you want to help a lady fighting with her husband, she humiliates you! She asks you to mind your own business. " 

Please don’t consider this. Humiliation does not kill. Blows, wounds, broken bones, can! Maybe it is not her husband. Maybe you will just save a life! May God help us all! 

Stay Blessed!