Question

Domestic violence is characterized by the complexity of the relationships and actions of the perpetrator who gradually creates an environment where he/she can perform violence and terrorize his/her victims, while on the other hand it is getting increasingly harder for the victim to find a way out of the abusive relationship. This is Esi's story:
“When I first saw him, I thought I met the man of my dreams. He was really charming and wanted to be with me all the time. It didn't bother me in the beginning, that he preferred being alone with me and refused to get to know my friends and family. I thought he loved me so much that he didn't care about others.
Soon he became very jealous and he began accusing me of having an affair although at that time I didn’t go anywhere without him. He had angry outbursts more and more often. During his outbursts, he was really insulting. He called me names. He threatened me with all kinds of stuff. Everything was always my fault. I became really afraid of him. First such things happened once in a while, but soon it was every week and then every day.

Examiner: Dr. Alice Boateng

I tried to satisfy his every need, hoping he would stop the abuse. But he didn’t. He became more and more violent. When he was not in the right mood, he could break all the glasses we had and then demanded I clean up the mess.
He hit me for the first time when I came home from the maternity ward where I gave birth to our first child. I cried the whole night. I started realizing the abuse won’t just go away. And it didn’t. The first hit was nothing in comparison to what followed. The worst thing was that he insisted we had sex every time he beat me up. I was too afraid to say no. So we had sex. Our children crying in the room next door, terrified because of everything that was happening. I didn’t know for a long time that this was rape.
Finally, I decided to leave him. I didn’t know where to go with my two children. I didn’t have money to rent a room; I lost contact with all my friends years ago. We had a big house. So I suggested that we divorce and live on different floors. There was enough space to do that. He didn’t even want to hear about it.
He said we should stay together as a family. But he was just afraid he would lose control over me, if I lived separately. He wanted to have me there, to be able to abuse me further. But I didn’t know that back then. After a while, the situation became unbearable. I was afraid he would kill me and no one would know what happened. So I started to talk about his abuse with some neighbours, acquaintances, people I knew, although they weren’t really my friends. Everybody said I had to leave him immediately. Some said I was crazy to have two children with a guy like that. I agreed with them. But I loved my kids; it was the only thing from our relationship that was good; the only positive thing in my life.
I was losing my strength. I couldn’t sleep, I barely ate. I lost 15 kilos in couple of months. I took care of my two children, who were 3 and 4 years old at that time, but I didn’t smile, I was never really relaxed. I thought I would go crazy and they will take my children away. What would happen to them if something happens to me? That was my biggest concern as they were the only reason I still wanted to live.
One evening, after beating me up, he dragged me out of the house and locked the door. He beat me really hard and my whole body hurt. I called the police. They suggested I go to the crisis centre for the night as it wasn’t safe for me to stay in the house. They helped me to go back to the house and take the children who were already sleeping. I didn’t take anything else. I didn’t care for anything I just wanted to go and never come back.
And I didn’t. I stayed in the shelter for a couple of weeks. I also contacted social work service and filed a report to the police. Then my children and I moved to a safe house. I got a lot of support from the staff. I was finally able to relax and to think how I wanted my life to be. It wasn’t always easy, but I thought: “If I had survived relationship with my ex-partner, I could survive anything
QUESTION:
Discuss what the UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 means for women and girls in Esi’s situation