Battered woman warns others

A mother of four who was the victim of domestic abuse at the hands of a man she shared a four month relationship with is calling on abused women to seek help rather than stay and suffer in silence.

Nicole Quashie was speaking at the annual general meeting of the Shelter for Battered Women and Children at St Joseph Convent, Port-of-Spain on Monday.

“Women if you are being abused do not wait for the situation to get better because it wouldn’t,” she warned. “Call someone for help and if you don’t want to help yourself, think about your children.”

Quashie an ex resident of the shelter and her four children were subjected to abuse she said from an ex-convict. Nicole related that she and her children, ages of ten to 17, went to live with the man because her house in Valencia was gutted by fire on December, 4 2004.

Until this move, she said she had been living “pillar to post” as she had no permanent place to stay. A month into the relationship however she began hearing rumours that her boyfriend had just recently returned from a stint in jail.

She confronted him with the rumours which he admitted to be true in a heated argument. From that moment, the abuse began. She admitted, “All kinds of abuse from physical, emotional, verbal to financial abuse was showered on me and my children on a daily basis.”

The situation, she said, finally came to a head when she noticed her two youngest children were acting distant. She also noticed that her ten-year-old son who suffers with a heart ailment began to suck his thumb, a habit he had already given up.

Her voice wavered when she recalled that on the day of his birthday on September, 2 2005 she asked her son what was wrong and he replied that the man had threatened him by choking him and brandishing a cutlass at him saying he did not like “boy children” as there is only room for “one man in the house” and repeatedly asked the child if he thought “he was a man.”

At that point, she said, she left the house and sought the protection of the Arima police. They were able to contact the Shelter through 800-SAVE and she and her children were taken to the shelter for three months.

Describing her experience there as “wonderful” she explained that the shelter offered counselling to her and her children. They encouraged her not to depend on their services but to seek to help herself.

They assisted her in getting a job as well as getting placement for her children in schools. She is currently a patient care assistant at the Sangre Grande hospital. She is renting an apartment but will be moving to her new home in Sangre Grande on the 18th of this month. This move was initiated by the shelter itself with the assistance of the National Housing Authority.

As for the perpetrator of the acts of abuse against the family, she said, he is back in jail on a charge of attempted murder.