It’s striking how many prominent women have had to deal with domestic violence in their marriages. Onyeka Owenu spoke about it, Ngozi Nwosu once recounted in an interview how her husband beat her and pulled out her hair extensions, taking some of her flesh with them, and Patience Ozokwor has also spoken about being physically abused by her late husband.
And these are women whose stories we actually know. I can only imagine how many other women have endured years of physical and emotional abuse in their marriages, suffering in silence because they felt they had no one to turn to, feared the stigma of leaving, or simply didn’t feel safe enough to speak.
For every woman whose story became public, there are probably countless others whose stories never will.
“My husband abuse could have killed me, I was going down and my brother called me at some point and said ‘Onyeka, you’re losing yourself’. He never forgave me for walking away from an abusive marriage. And to punish me, he did something that he would answer to God for”
——Onyeka Onwenu