Sentenced by a prayer warrior

SORCERY

By REBECCA KUKU
MY name is Nainien and I am a survivor of sorcery accusation-related violence (SARV).
My husband and I are from the same place in Southern Highlands. I was still in Grade 12, when he came to my father’s house with pigs asking for my hand in marriage.
My family agreed to his marriage proposal and my dreams of becoming a teacher ended that day. I was given away to become the wife of a man who had a “big name”.
Life was good, my husband pampered me and gave me everything I wanted, and he was also very generous to my family.
A couple of years came and went and I gave birth to two daughters.
My husband favoured me but would always urge me to give him a son so that I could have a status in his family’s eyes.
But nevertheless he was fair and kind. His older sister though, did not like me. She would complain that I wasn’t giving her money, that I was greedy. But as a mother, any money my husband gave me, I would prioritise my kids’ needs first. Then whatever I had remaining I would give her a K20 or K50 for bus fare when she and her family came for a visit.
But that was not enough. She told everyone how greedy I was. Even though she was married, she expected my husband and I to give her money all the time.
There were times we would fight; people thought we were second and first wife fighting over our husband. I could not understand why she did all that but my husband loved his sister and always I would be the one to apologise first.
One rainy afternoon in 2015, my husband was driving back home from Mt Hagen when he got into an accident. He was rushed to the hospital but was declared dead on arrival.
I was only 24 years old, and my daughters were five and three. I was heartbroken and lost. I didn’t know what to do.
It wasn’t until after we buried him that the nightmare began.
His family were not happy with his death and they brought a woman from the Imbonggu area, who was allegedly visited by the Holy Mother and had ‘sight’ and could see things. She came with her holy water and some so-called prayer warrior mothers to our home and started reciting the holy rosary and praying. After a while she fell into a fit of sorts and started speaking in tongues.
When she awoke, she told them that I had killed my husband; I had eaten his heart and wanted to get his money and run away with my young lover, a man my own age. She told them that if they checked they would see that all his savings were left under me and my children’s name.
But that was common sense, we were his family, his dependents. He had listed us as beneficiaries as both his parents were deceased. He also told me about this earlier. I was his wife. My children were his children.
But the family believed woman’s lies. They checked and found that he had left me and the kids 80 per cent of his savings and 10 per cent each was for his two sisters. He was an only son and there were just the three of them.
That, they said was their evidence. We argued, they both ganged up on me and beat me in Mt Hagen just outside of the savings office as my two children cried. A small crowd gathered so they got me and threw me inside a 10-seater vehicle whilst my babies were taken in another vehicle by some of their relatives.
On the drive back to Southern Highlands they beat me in the car. I tried to fight, to jump out of the vehicle but something hit me hard on the head and I passed out.
I woke up just as we were driving into the village but instead of stopping we went up to the mountain top.
My two sisters in-law were nowhere to be seen. There were just my husband’s tribesmen who kept asking me why I killed him. Wasn’t I satisfied with the money he gave me fortnightly? Why did I eat his heart and who was my young lover?
They kept asking me. It was getting cold and I started shivering but they said that just showed that the devil in me was becoming nervous by their questions. They built a huge fire up on the mountain as more men came up to where we were.

Woman who had an alleged divine visitation and ‘power of sight’ tells relatives of a dead man that his wife had killed him so she could take his life savings…

In the light of the flames, I could see all of them, my tambus. Then I heard one yell, tear her clothes and check her, sanguma stap insait long em”. I tried fighting them but there were too many; they tore my clothes and made me stand naked in front of the flames as the prodded me with sticks and their knifes. It was humiliating and I was just filled with so much rage but no matter how many times I screamed at them and explained to them, they just laughed and prodded my naked body like I was some kind of pig on sale.
I tried explaining one last time but someone punched me in the face. When I fell to the ground, I felt someone jump on top of me, and there the rape began.
I lost count of how many times or how many men, as I passed out a couple of times, I was gang-raped, whilst many other men, both young and old and even boys as young as eight years old, stood in a circle and watched.
I heard the women call up from the village center, “karim dispela sanguma kam daun”. By that time, I’m not sure but it was probably around 1 or 2am.
I was dragged down to the village center, as they dragged me, someone kicked me in the face, and another whipped me with a knife. I was naked, bleeding and cold.
The women and children, the whole village came out to watch as the questions began again. I looked and I saw all those people I had known and lived with yet none of them cared. They watched with glee, for this was entertainment for them.
I saw my friend, or a woman that I had regarded as a friend, through my swollen blackened eyes and broken lips. I asked her for my daughters but she turned her back and walked away.
I prayed that my papa would come, or my brother, my uncles. After all our village was just nearby. Surely they must have heard by now what my in-laws were doing to me. But no one came.
I was burnt with hot iron rods. By this time, many had left, though a couple of women remained, including my sister in-law, the one who always fought with me.
She was crying for her dead brother, my husband and was urging her tribesman to go on and ask me why, when my people and I were “eating” all his money, that I had killed him. And now I wanted to get his savings as well. She was preaching about how Nature was fair and that God had shown them who I was, just in time.
So they pulled me up and tied me on a pole, like those used to carry pigs. I was tied like a pig too.
They pushed the hot iron rods into my private part and burnt my back and buttocks. My nipples were burnt over and over until they were gone.
Oh the pain and agony! I prayed for death, Lord knows. I cried to God and when he didn’t grant me death, I prayed to my dead husband and my dead ancestors to come take me but death did not come.
Morning came, and the questions continued, one of my in-laws asked me to just admit. He said if I admitted to killing my husband, the pain would stop.
Just then I heard my five-year-old daughter scream mama!
Through all that shouting, all those men and woman talking and all that pain, I heard her little voice. Then someone from the crowd screamed “karim ol go long haus na haitim ol.”
I tried to scream, to tell my baby that it was okay, but my voice was gone.
I passed out I guess. I passed out too many times that I couldn’t really remember or tell what time it was. I prayed again that my papa would come, that my brothers and my tribesmen would come for me. Surely by now, they would have heard but still no one came.
They started to make a huge bonfire and I knew, it was for me, that today they would burn me alive. My voice was gone but I screamed for my papa one last time that they would burn me soon, and he must come get me.
But he did not come. Instead my in-laws asked me again why I had killed my husband.
Then, I didn’t know who he was, but this man came. He looked like he was a nambis man (man from the coast). He came with several other people and two police vehicles and they dispersed the crowd.
But one of my in-laws, before walking away, swung his knife at me, slicing one side of my face.
I was taken down from the pole; the bush ropes they had used to tie me had cut through my feet, hands and belly.
My insides were burnt with the hot iron and I had knife cuts from my back to my legs, my nipples and breast was burnt to almost nothing and I was bleeding. My eyes were swollen and black, my lips cut, the bottom lip was split right in the middle and my fingers and toes were all burnt.
I was taken to the hospital and my wounds were treated, but after that no one wanted to serve me. They did when the kind nambis man was there but after he left, the nurses ignored me. I could hear people whispering, em sanguma ya”.
The nambis man and his wife came to check on me after two days and realised my wounds were not washed and that no one had seen to me. So they took me in their car and under police escort we drove all the way down to Mt Hagen where I was admitted to a ward. I stayed in the hospital for almost eight months, before I could walk again.
I was moved to the intermediate ward where the couple paid the fee for me to stay another three months.
Soon a year had gone by.
On the morning when I was discharged, the couple asked me if I had any place, any relatives to go to and I said no. For it took me a year to realise that I now had no family. They took me in to their home and treated me like a daughter.
There are times when I cry for my babies. I still do not know where they are or if they are okay. Only a mother can understand that pain, that emptiness. I can only pray that one day we will be reunited again.
In 2016, my new family was transferred out of the highlands region and I moved with them.
It’s been exactly four years, eight months and three days since I was tortured.
Yes, I remember the date, for it was only one day after my beloved husband’s funeral.
Some scars have healed and faded, but the one on my face remains. My fingers have healed though the skin is gone and so as my toes.
The nightmares still come at night, and every morning I wake up with an emptiness and despair of losing my babies. But I’ll get there.
I only hope and pray that one day, one day the law will be strong enough to protect women.