My Husband Threw Me Out With Baby Because Of House Help – Kenyan Singer
Justina Syokau | Kenyan Music
“Twendy Twendy” singer Justina Syokau in a chat with BBC has opened up about the crash of her marriage and enduring verbal as well as physical abuse.
The gospel singer detailed how her colourful 2012 wedding went south shortly after returning from her honeymoon with whom she thought was her Prince Charming.
The Machakos-born singer blamed her in-laws whom they were living with for the crash of her marriage as she accused them of making their marital life difficult.
She said:
“Right after the wedding, my husband started physically and verbally abusing me; he’d punch me at the slightest provocation.”
According to her, she chose to endure the abuse with hopes that her husband will change but things only got worse with time.
“Sometimes, my husband would travel for several days without informing me where he was. He used to leave me without money or food. Shockingly, he was listening to his mother more than me; I had no voice in my marriage.”
She also alleged verbal abuse from her mother-in-law whom she claims insulted her with her husband present and he did nothing to stop it.
Justina Syokau | Twitter
The birth of their first child that should have helped matters only worsened it. Justina gave birth through caesarean section and needed assistance with house chores.
She said her husband got them a house help from his village who arrived before the singer’s discharge from the hospital.
Soon after arriving home from the hospital with her new-born, Justina’s husband and mother-in-law demanded that she packs her things and leaves her home. Soon, it became evident that her husband and the house help were having an affair.
“It was not a secret; they would call each other often and play around like lovers in my presence.”
Justina claims she endured the abuse because of her Christian values as she didn’t want people to think she could not maintain her marriage.
“I wondered ‘If I leave what would people say about my broken marriage?’ As a Christian, I didn’t want people to think I was unable to maintain my marriage and so I opted to stay put,” she said.
Things deteriorated further as her husband and house help began having sex in Justorina’s matrimonial bed. Soon the help accused Justina of verbal abuse.
Despite her protest of innocence, she says she was clobbered and thrown out with nothing except her baby’s clothes. Having no one to turn to, she slept in the streets with her baby for two months.
“We had no place to sleep and I’d look for food in garbage bins. There was no one to help me during that tough period in my life.”
With help from a Good Samaritan who gave her money for transport fare, she traveled back to her parents’ home in Machakos. However, because of her family’s negative perception of women in failed marriages, she got a cold reception.
Feeling unwelcome, she soon left home to look for work from a friend they use to attend church together.
“I started a new life and started focusing on recording music and hawking it with my baby strapped on my back,” she said
She has since put all these behind her and is working tirelessly to fulfill her dream as a musician. She urges women in abusive marriages to be decisive rather than continue suffering.
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