When homes turn into killing and torture fields
Nowadays, not a week goes by without the media reporting at least one murder in which the main suspect is a wife, husband, boyfriend or girlfriend.
Nowadays, not a week goes by without the media reporting at least one murder in which the main suspect is a wife, husband, boyfriend or girlfriend. There has also been a worrying increase in cases of violence against children, with most of these incidents being perpetrated by these children’s parents, the very people that should be protecting them from harm.
The past one year and several months have been especially difficult for most families, with lack of money being the root of the problem. The Covid-19 pandemic has robbed a majority of Kenyans of their sources of livelihood, with the rest having to make do with drastically reduced incomes.
The result has been unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety in the face of an uncertain future. When the first case of this virus was reported, scientists initially gave it six months to fizzle out, and when it didn’t, they gave it a year. Now, no one is discussing timelines after it long became clear that there is a lot about this virus that we still don’t understand.
When cases of violence in homes rose dramatically within just a few months after the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Kenya, I sought the insight of a psychologist for a feature I was writing in an effort to decipher the connection between the virus and a deteriorating family unit.
Tearing families apart
The psychologist, Prof Catherine Gachutha, an expert in her field having practised for decades, told me it was not surprising that the hardships the pandemic had brought with it were tearing families apart. Stress, whatever the trigger was, she pointed out, had a way of bringing out the worst in people, and the first casualties of this strain was almost always the people closest to the person, in this case the person’s loved ones, such as the spouse, children or boyfriend and girlfriend.
When most people are frustrated, she went on to explain, they are most likely to lash out at those closest to them, even when the frustration is not tied to the people they turn their wrath on.
Commenting on marriages and how they would fare in the face of the pandemic, she talked of two outcomes, the first being that there were marriages that would benefit from the increased time couples were forced to spend together as they worked from home or got home earlier than usual to beat the curfew - these couples would use this time to find a solution to the problems that bedevilled their marriage and emerge from the pandemic stronger. However long the pandemic would last.
Curfews
The second outcome was that there were relationships that would deteriorate even further as couples that didn’t get along were compelled to spend more time than they were willing to, together, in the confined space they called home.
With churches, bars and restaurants shut, movement restricted and night-life virtually non-existent due to the long-running curfew, many of us have no social life, and for those that were running away from something, including a spouse they didn’t get along with, the places to run to are very limited now.
The fact is that many are in a make or break situation, and those horrifying headlines we keep reading about couples killing one another or parents killing their children in shocking ways reflect the defeating circumstances many find themselves in. We are faced with a very big and frightening problem to which an urgent solution is needed. Pray, who has this solution?
