Locked In With My Abuser

Domestic abuse has spiked during lockdown. We speak to two women afraid of living with their partners

- Duenna Mambana

The hairs on the back of Duduzile Baloyi’s* neck stood up when the start of the national lockdown was announced. She knew she would be trapped at home with her husband – her abuser – for at least three weeks, unable to leave.

Then those three weeks stretched out into one month, then two. It became a nightmare for Duduzile and others like her.

Since the lockdown began on 27 March, the government’s Gender-Based Violence Command Centre (GBVCC) received more than 120 000 calls to its national helpline – double the usual volume.

Duduzile (35), who has two children, started thinking of divorcing her husband of 15 years in the weeks before the lockdown.

Now she fears for her life. They tried therapy and were separated for several months. He moved back into their house in March this year so they could give their marriage another go.

“We used to be happy, in our dating years and even in our marriage. We were crazy about each other. We used to be the couple who were asked to give speeches at weddings, and at church, people looked up to us – I believe some still do. But things changed at the beginning of last year,” Duduzile recalls.

Her husband became cruel towards her but she would often dismiss his comments, telling her self he was just going through a hard time at work.

“I thought it was nothing. Until one day when he pushed me, and I hit my head against the coffee table.”

They were both shocked, and he apologized. “I believed him and did nothing about it. To me, it was not abused. I really thought I’d caught him at a bad time. Do you see a pattern there?