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| Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash |
When Jessica got married to Michael, everyone in the neighbourhood said she was lucky.
She was twenty-eight, a primary school teacher with a bright personality and plans for the future. She loved working with children and had been saving for years to open a small bookshop where she could sell children's books and educational materials. Michael was a successful businessman, active in his church and always willing to contribute whenever the community needed help. People respected him. When they got married, everyone believed Jessica had found a good man.
By the time the story began to change, Jessica and Michael had already been married for six years. They had two children, a boy and a girl, and from the outside, their family looked settled. They attended church together, appeared at family gatherings, and celebrated their children's birthdays like any other family. But inside their home, something had been changing for a long time.
It started with questions that gradually became demands. Why had Jessica spent so long at work? Who had called her? Why did she need to visit her friend? Why was she spending her own money without telling him? When she began coming home later than usual, even by a few minutes, Michael became angry. When she received a promotion at school, he accused her of becoming too independent. When she wanted to visit her mother, he asked why she needed to leave the house so often. Jessica's sister noticed the changes and told her that Michael was probably just protective. Her mother reminded her that marriage required adjustment. Nobody saw these things as the beginning of something dangerous. They were simply called love, jealousy, protection, or the normal challenges of marriage.
The first time Michael hit Jessica, it was during an argument about money. She had used part of her salary to buy shoes for work without telling him. He slapped her, and for a moment neither of them spoke. Michael apologised afterwards. He said he had been angry and that she had disrespected him. He promised it would never happen again. Jessica wanted to believe him. When her sister later noticed the bruise on her cheek and asked what happened, Jessica said they had had a misunderstanding. Her sister asked whether Michael had hit her, and Jessica eventually admitted that he had. But instead of telling her that she did not deserve to be hit, her sister said, “Marriage requires patience.” It was advice offered with concern, but Jessica left the conversation wondering whether she had somehow contributed to what happened.
The violence gradually became more difficult to hide. The neighbours heard Michael shouting late at night, doors slamming and objects breaking inside their home. On one occasion, a neighbour saw him grab Jessica's arm so forcefully that she cried out. Another noticed that Jessica had started wearing long sleeves even when the weather was hot. Someone asked if she was sick when she began wearing sunglasses in the evening to hide a swollen eye. But each time, there was an explanation. “They are having marital problems.” “She should know how to handle her husband.” “He is under pressure.” “They will settle it.” The community saw pieces of what was happening but never put them together.
Jessica's world became smaller. Michael questioned her phone calls, discouraged her from visiting friends, and eventually became angry whenever she spent time with her mother. She began asking permission for things she had never needed permission for before. Her friends noticed that she rarely came around anymore, but when they asked, she said she was busy. Gradually, they stopped asking.
Then Jessica went to her mother's house with a small bag.
She had finally decided to leave.
She told her mother everything—the controlling behaviour, the insults, the threats and the physical violence. She showed her the bruises and said she was afraid that one day Michael would kill her. Her mother cried, but after the tears came fear: fear of what the family would say, fear of a broken marriage, fear of raising two children without their father, and fear of the shame that might follow. “Think about your children,” she told Jessica. “Children need their father. Maybe he will change.”
Jessica looked at her two children sitting quietly in the room.
She wanted her mother to tell her that she had done the right thing by leaving.
Instead, she was given another reason to return.
So she went back.
That was how the community continued to fail her—not through one deliberate decision, but through many small ones.
Her friends called the jealousy love. Her family called it endurance and patience. Her neighbours called the violence a private family matter. When she spoke to a religious leader, hoping for guidance, she was encouraged to be patient and work towards reconciliation. Michael was known as a respectable man, so many people found it easier to believe that the marriage simply had problems than to confront the possibility that a respected man was abusing his wife.
Nobody was telling Jessica directly to suffer.
But almost everyone was giving her a reason to stay.
And Michael noticed.
He learned that apologies could erase what had happened in the eyes of others. He learned that his reputation could speak louder than Jessica's fear. He learned that when people saw violence, they were more likely to ask what Jessica had done to provoke him than why he had chosen to hurt her.
Jessica's children were only five and eight, but they knew when their father was angry.
They knew from the sound of his footsteps. They knew from the way their mother suddenly became quiet. They knew when not to ask for anything. They had learned to stay in their room when voices became loud and to wait until the house became silent again.
Jessica tried to protect them from what was happening. She told herself that staying was better for them than leaving. She wanted them to grow up with both parents.
But one night, after another violent argument, her daughter found her sitting on the floor, holding her injured arm.
“Mummy,” she asked quietly, “why does Daddy make you cry?”
Jessica pulled her close.
“He is just angry.”
The little girl looked at her brother, then back at their mother.
“Are we supposed to be scared when Daddy is angry?”
Jessica could not answer.
For the first time, she understood that the violence she had been trying to hide from her children had already become part of their childhood.
Children do not need to be physically attacked to be affected by violence. They absorb it through fear, silence, and the behaviour they watch adults normalise. They learn when to keep quiet, when to hide, and what love is supposed to look like.
Jessica had been thinking about how to save her marriage.
Her children were learning how to survive it.
The final incident happened on a Thursday night.
The argument began over something small, as many of their arguments did. Michael's voice became louder. Jessica tried to leave the room. He blocked the door. The neighbours heard the shouting, then a crash. One neighbour stepped outside and considered going over, but another stopped him.
“Don't involve yourself. They will settle it.”
A few minutes later, Jessica's son ran out of the house crying.
“My mummy is not waking up.”
The neighbours rushed inside. Someone called for a car. Someone called the police. Someone called Jessica's mother.
But the help came too late.
Jessica died that night.
She was thirty-four years old.
Her children were five and eight.
The news travelled quickly through the community.
The same people who had once described Michael as a good man now spoke about Jessica's suffering. People remembered the bruises they had seen, the shouting they had heard, and the times Jessica had withdrawn from everyone. Her mother remembered the day her daughter had told her she was afraid. Her sister remembered the first bruise. The neighbour remembered the nights when the walls carried the sound of violence into the compound.
Everyone remembered something.
And that was the hardest part.
They had known.
Perhaps they had not known every detail. Perhaps they had not understood how dangerous the situation had become. But the signs had been there.
The problem was that each person had treated their piece of the story as someone else's responsibility.
***
Violence against women does not always happen where nobody can see it. Sometimes people see the bruises. They hear the arguments. They notice a woman becoming withdrawn. They hear her say that she is afraid. They know that something is wrong, but they do not know how to respond—or they respond by asking the woman to change her behaviour.
“Why did you argue with him?”
“Why didn't you just keep quiet?”
“Think about your children.”
“Don't destroy your home.”
“Maybe he will change.”
“Marriage requires patience.”
These statements may come from people who genuinely care. But when a woman is experiencing violence, advice that focuses on what she should do differently can shift attention away from the person choosing to harm her.
A woman should not have to become quieter, more obedient, less independent, or more patient to deserve safety.
The responsibility for violence belongs to the person who commits it.
But communities still have a responsibility: to recognise warning signs, to listen when women speak, to avoid blaming survivors, to connect them with appropriate professional support and to challenge the attitudes that make abuse easier to excuse.
Intervention does not mean putting oneself or a survivor in greater danger. It does not mean confronting a violent person recklessly. Sometimes intervention begins with listening privately, asking whether the woman is safe, respecting her decisions, and helping her access the right support.
Perhaps Jessica would still be alive if someone had responded differently.
Perhaps not.
We cannot know.
But we can ask what might have changed if, the first time her sister saw the bruise, she had said, “You did not deserve that, and you do not have to face this alone.”
What if her mother had said, “Your safety comes before what people will say about your marriage?”
What if the neighbour had understood that repeated violence was not simply a marital disagreement?
What if the religious leader had prioritised Jessica's safety before reconciliation?
What if her friends had recognised isolation as a warning sign instead of accepting her disappearance from their lives?
These questions are not about assigning responsibility for Jessica's death to everyone around her. Michael was responsible for the violence and for the decision that ultimately took her life.
The questions are about something else: What can communities do before another woman reaches the point Jessica reached?
Prevention begins long before a woman is lying in a morgue. It begins when children are taught that love does not give anyone ownership over another person's body or choices. It begins when boys learn that anger does not justify intimidation and when girls learn that being a good woman does not mean enduring harm. It begins when friends stop describing controlling behaviour as romance, when families stop placing reputation above safety, and when community leaders understand that keeping a marriage together cannot come at the cost of a woman's life.
It also means creating pathways to help that women can actually trust—places where they can seek medical, legal, psychosocial, and other appropriate support without being blamed or pressured back into danger.
***
At Jessica's funeral, people spoke about the woman she had been before violence slowly changed her. They remembered the teacher who loved children. The woman who wanted to open a bookshop. The daughter who had once believed her family would protect her. The mother who tried desperately to protect her own children.
But Jessica should not have had to die for her community to recognise her worth.
Her death should not have been the moment everyone finally agreed that something was wrong.
The warning signs were there long before the final night. The bruises. The controlling behaviour. The isolation. The shouting. The frightened children. The woman who said she was afraid.
The problem was never that nobody saw anything. The problem was that everyone kept waiting for someone else to act.
Violence against women may happen inside a home, but preventing it cannot be left entirely behind that door. Communities are made up of the people who hear, notice, advise, support, dismiss, and respond.
We cannot control every person who chooses to commit violence. But we can decide what happens around that violence. We can decide whether a woman who speaks will be believed or blamed; whether a warning sign will be dismissed or taken seriously; whether a family's reputation will matter more than a woman's safety; whether ‘marital problems’ will remain an excuse for behaviour that should be challenged; and whether the next woman who says, “I am afraid,” will hear another reason to endure—or finally hear the words she needed all along:
“I believe you. You do not deserve this. You do not have to face this alone.”
Because prevention is not waiting until a woman is dead and asking why nobody knew.
Sometimes, everybody knows.
What matters is what we choose to do with what we know.
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