Safe As Houses

The woman running through our apartment complex hasn’t managed to grab the baby.She streaks down the dark driveway, copper hair trailing in a tangle, the smack of her shoes like gunshots on a vicious night and my sister Mon and I rummage around frantically trying to find the gate key.

The gate, for what it’s worth, is an unmitigated pain in the arse.

It’s one of those heavy brown retractable jobs that stick when you’re in a hurry, creak open too slowly when it’s frighteningly late and which seems downright glacial as the woman speeds towards it ahead of a man screaming blue murder.

Mon and I find the keys.

We hurtle towards the balcony, press the brown button and the woman bolts out into the street in disbelief.

To her, the closed gate must have opened by some lofty miracle and she glances up briefly, not catching sight of us, before disappearing into the dark.

Her partner, the baby jostling on his hip as he emerges, isn’t far behind. He’s been threatening her for the worst part of a long night and he swears bitterly as his eyes scan the seemingly empty road.

“I’m calling the police!” I yell crouched on the balcony floor and the man makes his sullen way back to his apartment, the baby silent all the while.

Mon and I don’t call the cops that night but we do on Christmas Eve.

I’ve gone to bed before midnight like I have since I was old enough to get Hallmark about it, and it takes a while for me to wise up to what’s going on.

At first I think our neighbours are doing some late night redecorating – thumps, and yells made less sinister through a thick fog of sleep – but eventually a woman hoarsely shouting “help!” pierces dreams and sends me out into the hall where Mon is wide-eyed and making a voice recording.

The constable who eventually arrives can’t do much because the woman being beaten up below us denies it.

I’ve crept downstairs to find our neighbours’ glass door shattered from a blow we heard earlier but the woman isn’t willing to press charges and pleads some desperate misunderstanding.

I think of these women as the world locks down to stop spreading the deadly coronavirus.

I imagine the one who ran away and the other who chose to stay and I know that, for women all over the globe, this essential restriction of movement means being trapped with their abusers.

For some, being able to leave for work, go to school or have their partners do the same offered some much-needed respite.

Time for abusive partners to work up the sweat of life and be too tired to pick fights. A moment to breathe and memorise the minefields. A break from what is always one wrong step away.

In South Africa, the police reported 87 000 calls related to gender-based violence in the very first week of lockdown. Australians’ internet searches for support for domestic violence victims has increased by 75%, and in France and Spain when victims running essential errands get to the front of a staggered queue, there are codewords for danger.

Ironically, sergeant Fabian Amukwelele, a police officer recently arrested on rape charges, shared the news of Windhoek’s increased incidence of domestic violence since the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown and cited alcohol as a contributing factor.

In Namibia, at the moment alcohol sales have been banned.

Domestic violence is prohibited but lockdown or not, the lawlessness continues as a ‘shadow pandemic’ festers behind doors closed against coronavirus, but shutting escalating tension, alcohol abuse, financial strain, rape, violence and silence in.

Safe as houses.

It’s a strange little phrase.

Houses, after all, are only as safe as people.

To report cases of domestic violence call the Windhoek City Police on 061 302 302 or 061 290 2239. For free counselling and referrals contact Regain Trust on 081 703 3203 (Khomas), 081 558 4008 (Erongo) and 081 558 4004 (Omusati). Dial 106 for toll-free support from Lifeline/Childline Namibia. For legal and psychosocial support call MeToo Namibia on 081 351 1979.

– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com

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