It was barely a month ago that marathoner Rebecca Cheptegei ran in the Paris Olympics. She had reached what a minute percentage of the world’s population will ever accomplish. Only about 0.0000017% of the world’s population, or 1 in 500,000 people, make it to the Olympics. Rebecca achieved a near-impossible feat! Rather than continuing to celebrate her accomplishment or working to earn a gold medal, as she had hoped, she is now a victim of domestic violence. She was burned to death by her boyfriend.
Sadly, Rebecca is not the only elite Kenyan athlete to have been killed by a partner. According to the United Nations, in 2020 (the most recent year for which data are available) about 47,000 women and girls across the globe were murdered by their intimate partners or other family members. In other words, every 11 minutes, a family member takes the life of a girl or woman. If you think this is a phenomenon that plagues poor or religious countries where girls’ and women’s rights are restricted, think again. “The U.S. ranks 34th for intentional female homicides at a rate of 2.6 killings per 100,000 women.” This is according to the World Bank, which gathers data from every country. On average, nearly three women are killed by an intimate partner each day in the United States.
I share my own story of survival with my students and women who are in these situations or have survived domestic abuse. I am no stranger to abuse, and what lifted me when I needed it was knowing that others had also overcome it. It was having other women letting me know that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that a future free of physical abuse and psychological torment was possible, that gave me hope to carry on.
Listening to a girlfriend recently who shared the story that, as a teenager, she interrupted her best friend’s dad, who was abusing her mom, and helped them escape, reminded me of the power of community, bravery, and interruption. My friend’s mother had escaped with her and her siblings when she was an adolescent. She knew that it was possible. She took a brave stance and saved lives.
It isn’t always safe to interrupt an abuser as a bystander, but the courage to say that we won’t allow that and to help is powerful and can be the difference between life and death. When my own family and some friends said that they wouldn’t intervene because my abuse was a personal matter, I felt even more isolated and despaired. It hurt when I was encouraged by loved ones to return, even after I escaped. Luckily, there were just enough people who helped.
Be the interrupter for a loved one or for a stranger because abuse is not okay.
