Tracey and Jim had been friends for over two years. However, as the relationship progressed and both began to live in the same house it seemed as if the relationship was going down hill. 

Tracey would prepare breakfast and dinner for Jim but as time went by Jim began to make demands of Tracey. Demands he had no right to make. He would hit her because the dinner was late in being prepared or the house was in his opinion, not tidied properly. Very soon Tracey was being beaten every day for reasons which Jim would shout and curses in a loud voice, adding to Tracey’s humiliation. Sometimes she would try to fight back but he would somehow over power her. Anyway, one day she got tired of his abuse. She decided that she would kill him or move out if he hit her again. 

That night he came home and found many faults with what was done in the house. He began to hit her al over her body. Tracey felt used and so badly abused. Eventually she found the strength to it back. She felt all the frustrations she had held back all those times he had hit her. She picked up a vase, while he recovered from a particularly vicious attack she had made on him. As he began to move once more towards her , she hit him in the head with the vase. 

Thereafter she picked up the phone to report the incident. With tears of frustration, anger and release she met the police as they came to her gate. 

 The victim who turned on the abuser.  This gave the opportunity for discussion of alternative ways of handling the situation, the differences between revenge and self protection and the need for valuing oneself within an abusive relationship. Why did she stay to be beaten for so long? Should frustration be allowed to build up to such levels before doing anything about it?  Many class members could relate to similar scenes in their own families. 

Group B 

Kanaisha’s Abuse at her Aunt’s Home 

Kanaisha was two years old when her mom died in a car accident, so she had to go and live with her aunt and her husband and two children.  When Kanaisha started maturing her husband started touching her. He kept doing it for a period of time. Then she decided that she can’t take any more of it so she went and tell her aunt.  

Her aunt said to her that she can’t do anything about  it because he is the one providing food and it is his house.  Kanaisha had to cope with it because her aunt told her that if she told anyone she would send her on the street to live.  Kanaisha started wondering if her aunt’s husband is touching his two daughters so she went to her school guidance teacher and told what had happened. 

The guidance teacher called Kanaisha, her aunt, her aunt’s husband and the police. They all worked out what had happened and Kanaisha’s aunt and aunt’s husband confessed to it and Kanaisha’s aunt and her aunt’s husband was lock up and charge. Kanaisha was adopted by a nice couple and her cousins were put in a children’s home. 

When the aunt’s husband did it the first time she could go to her aunt and if her aunt did nothing she could go to her guidance teacher earlier and then to the police ad the police would take it from there. 

A common scenario for children in a foster situation. Difficult to deal with when the bread winner for the family is the abuser. When do we provoke family breakdown and loss of earnings due to prosecution for abuse? What is the greater evil. The turning point here was the young girl protecting other children – should she have had the self worth to protect herself? 

The Beatings - Group C 

David was eight years old. His daily chores after school involved feeding the dogs, washing the dishes, tidying the house and trimming the hedges when they needed it. Too much for and eight eyar old, right? No Not according to his father David Beating IIIrd. 

David’s father was 34 and still suffering from the scars of being excessively flogged as a boy. This seemed to be a family tradition. His father , his father’s father and the father before that all seemed to believe that a proper ‘licking’ with a piece of barb wire was what a boy needed to set him straight. Each successive parent would transform the pain, frustration and anger inside in to blows fists and lashes of abuse. 

At school, David was withdrawn and did not participate much in class and school activities. He was not very bright and so was teased and jeered by most of his classmates. He had very few friends and did not trust or desire the friendship of his male teachers. His many bruises and cuts were either hidden deep under his skin or under his shirt. No one suspected that he was being abused. To them he was an unfriendly or shy child. 

One day after PE at school David dragged himself home very tired. He raked the yard, tidied the house and washed the dishes. Then he went to bed. When his father came home from work at 8 in the evening he noticed the dishes washed and the yard raked . He hit David violently in his upper back and surprised the sleeping child. 

“Yu Feed the dogs ..” 

“No Dad ..” 

Before David could finish his sentence his father used his huge hands to slap him across his face. 

“Yu worthless piece of trash you. Yu can’t do notin. Yu are no use to me” His father marched out of the room and David knew exactly where he was heading. He went to the tool shed and grabbed a piece of barb wire. With years of anger blinding his eyes, he stormed to his son’s room and started to lace the child’s back with the wire. David pleaded and cried but his father’s ears were deafened by hate and years of degradation. David did not understand why his father would beat him so badly. He could not understand why he was not loved. He thought maybe daddy misses mummy. Maybe daddy had a hard day at work. Then lastly he thought - maybe I am a bad boy and I don’t deserve to be loved. With this thought he went to sleep. 

The next day at school was torture. The barb wire had torn bits of the flesh off his back and he couldn’t sit with his back on the chair. At lunch he sat alone as usual. SMACK! A bully passed and hit him on his back. The hit itself did not cause much pain but it must have tore some loose skin off as it burned him and there was a little blood on his shirt. After lunch a teacher watched him as he got up and noticed the spot of blood on his clothes. She asked him what was wrong but he refused to tell her. She brought him to the nurse who asked him to remove his shirt. He reluctantly undid his buttons and took is shirt off. The secret was out. The nurse was amazed to see the state of his back. Loose skin hung and his flesh was exposed in some parts. The nurse called the police who came and took David to a home. His father was called and questioned. 

David stayed in the foster home for three weeks. At the end of the three weeks was a court hearing. The judge recommended that both David and his father get counselling and a decision be made at the end of the sessions.  

After months of counselling David’s father got over his anger and pain and David at 8 years old decided he would never abuse his children. 

 Of course this was David’s own painful story – a certain amount of catharsis of pain occurred in the telling in class and he gained a lot of support from the reactions of his peers. 

 The poem below is a similar outpouring. 

Beating By KA Walker 

 My father beats me up 

just like his father did 

And grandad was beaten by 

Greatgrandad as a kid

From generation to generation 

A poisoned apple is passed along

And no-one thinking it’s wrong 

and it is 

Not the arguing the cursing the frustration or fear 

A normal child can cope with that, it grows easier by the year. 

But the using abusing and beatings 

Feeling the child is somewhat property owned 

In this family violence condoned. 

The peer counselling course provides a forum not only for learning how to handle problems of others and how to deal with queries coming from peers in the schools – it also provides an avenue to explore the self and to obtain peer support from within the class. 

Participating in such a course can evoke very powerful feelings and images in the minds of the youth who attend and it is essential that those leading the sessions are able to take up the material presented and handle it appropriately so that young people do not leave the room burdened by feelings which have been rekindled  but not dealt with. The leader must be able to contain the engendered feelings thus providing a safe environment for learning and for personal growth.