A life lost to domestic violence and cancer

In the early hours of December 23, 2014 Harriet Kobugabe breathed her last. She was not your regular celebrity or even a fame seeker. She lived an ordinary life in a two-bedroom house in Bukasa, Muyenga. Her grandparents raised her after her mother(now deceased) and father separated. She was known by a small circle of people, the same that escorted her to her final resting place in Apac. But those who knew her did not doubt that she had a bright future as an activist. She was on her way to prove them right when her trajectory was disrupted by two cruel events.

Being the victim of a beating by her fiancé when she was 24, left her with a crack in her chest. At 27, she was also found to have esophageal cancer.She succumbed to the latter two months from her 28thbirthday. Chances of the two incidents being linked are very slim.I know because I asked. Dr Noleb Mugisha, an oncologist and the head of Comprehensive Community Cancer Awareness at Uganda Cancer Institute when consulted said it is improbable that the cancer is connected to the chest injury she was left with.

“A wound could develop into a cancer if it has remained unhealed for about 30 years. Cancer cells take a long while to develop,” said Dr Mugisha. Kobugabe found out she had cancer after about two years since the chest injury. “It is more likely that she already had cancer and the symptoms happened to manifest at around the same time she got an injury in her chest,” he said.

The cancer and the beating tormented Kobugabe to the end.
At the time of her death, friends and colleagues were fundraising for surgery in India to fix her chest and start cancer treatment. It required a staggering Shs160 million. She did not have even a small fraction of the money when we met but hoped to recover and resume her life.

When we met
Kobugabe had shrunk to a gaunt, wasted version of the vivacious young woman in the photos she showed me. It seemed the illness had spared her voice. She talked about her work in civil society and passion to inspire young people especially women. She kept excusing herself everytime she had to spit into a yellow bottle even when my photographer and I said it was all right for who would begrudge a person in that pain their right to spit?

Some life sprung into her face when she talked about kindness from her friends at work and neighbourhood who had stood with her throughout her illness. They had raised Shs8m in a matter of days for an operation in May 2014 two months after the cancer diagnosis. She told us about her two charges, a 20-year-old orphaned man, and a four-year-old girl whose single mother was overwhelmed by raising her.

A neighbour narrated the young man’s plight on having missed out on government placement despite excellent performance. With little resources, Kobugabe embarked on knocking on door to make sure this young man goes to university. She had him apply for a course in Architectural engineering.

“I don’t know where I will get the money but I’m determined to see this young bright boy go through school,” she said. She managed a smile like any proud parent would when talking about their excellent grades. He seemed to be doing well in his first semester.

The rest of the time face alternated between the look of someone wracked in pain, extremely weary and wistful. “Where do you want me to start?” she had asked wondering. She started out.

Lovebirds meet
Sometime in June 2006, a 19-year-old girl met a 24-year-old man. She had just completed high school and found a temporary position doing research with an NGO. He was through with university and working his first job, at the same organisation. In her eyes, he was sophisticated.

She was an attractive, lively, young woman. By December that year, they had started a romance but one dogged by infidelity issues on the man’s part. The highpoints for Kobugabe were when her boyfriend reassured her that she was the only woman for him. “He had a way of making me feel so special and I really loved him. That is why I stayed,” said Harriet Kobugabe.

In 2009, she was throwing in the towel on the relationship. “He asked for one more chance. It is this chance that led to him visiting my people (kukyala) and our engagement.
“This chance also led to the one event that changed my life. The beginning of my problems. If I had walked out of that relationship, I believe I would be at a better place in my life,” she told me looking into the distance ruefully.

Events unfold
The events of that sunny afternoon in September 2011 are best told in Kobugabe’s own words.
“I had been hosting a lady friend for some time. That morning, my then fiancé did not seem too happy about it but he later dropped the matter.

However, he underwent a baffling change of heart when my friend bid us goodbye to check on some relatives. He begun asking her to stay a little longer and developed a sudden interest in knowing about her.

I recall asking him to stop peppering our guest with questions and offering to furnish him with any details he needed later. I never saw his arm lash out. I just felt his fingers close around my neck in a stranglehold and heard him angrily asking why I was meddling. Initially, I got shocked, and it occurred to me that he probably had an undiagnosed mental illness. I did not fight back because I thought something was wrong with him.”

Kobugabe said for the next three hours, her fiancé hit her until he tired, then resorted to banging her against the walls and burglar proofing on the door. Meanwhile, she says her friend never intervened. As it turned out a romantic relationship had been going on between her fiancé and roommate. She still lived in the very house it happened, though for the weeks towards the end of her short life a hospital bed was her new home.

To forgive him?
It is on the same brown sofas that she hosted us on that her brothers and estranged lover sat two weeks after the incident, asking Kobugabe to forgive her man and carry on. She says she sat on the cold tiles, doubled over in pain wondering, how she ever could.

Sitting opposite from me on a straight back chair, she told me how her brothers had become cold when she refused to forgive the ex. It is in the very same house’s bathroom that almost exactly a month after being beaten that she started throwing up blood and passed out. She ended up at International Hospital Kampala after being rushed there by ambulance.

“I was told I had a crack in my chest, which was bleeding and causing blood clots in my lungs. I underwent an operation to remove the clots and was advised to sleep on a flat surface for the crack to bridge,” she narrated.

Resilient
Esther Kirabo, Kobugabe’s maternal aunt who was nursing Kobugabe since she fell ill confirms they followed the doctor’s orders to the letter. “Harriet slept on this floor for eight months,” she said.
Though she told me Kobugabe still felt the pain, she went back to work. She visited the hospital often and took painkillers which gave her some relief.

Kobugabe never found a way around the emotional pain.It is evident even from the photos of her before the ravages of cancer were visible. She was still a picture of youthful beauty. A light in all her pictures before the beating was gone.

She never pressed charges, though she had an agreement from the police in Gulu where her ex fiancé lived at the time of the beating. He promised to pay her medical and living expenses while she recuperated. Kobugabe told me the man never honoured it. He had sent an email (she showed me) asking for forgiveness for beating her around the anniversary of the incident.

In some instances there is more than one truth in a story. And Kobugabe’ s life is one such instance. Cancer is no walk in the park, but also the domestic violence incident left her deeply traumatised.
The irony of working in a sector that among other things fights against domestic violence and to end up a victim of the same was not lost on her.

“To think that I dedicated my time to empowering young women and mentoring young people to help change their mindset and here I am grounded by domestic violence,” she said sorrowfully.
There is a recently empty house in Bukasa. Its owner, those who were around will tell you fought bravely to the very end but succumbed to cancer. What not many know is that she was in pain beyond the cancer. She wanted people to know she was also badly injured by domestic violence.

Domestic violence facts

According to domesticviolence.org, domestic violence is behaviour used by one person in a relationship to control the other. It also adds that the partners could be married or not, living together or apart.
Most of the domestic violence world over is meted out on women while the majority of perpetrators are men. About a third of the world’s women have admitted to experiencing violence from a partner.

According to a December 2012 report, 45 per cent women in Uganda had admitted to intimate partner violence in the last 12 months. 59 out of every 100 admitted to being subjected to violence by a partner in the course of their lifetime

Forms of violence
Physical is where the victim is subjected to actual blows and slaps, basically an attack on their body. It is the form most thought of when one mentions domestic violence.
Emotional violence is when the perpetrator uses hurtful words and abusive language against their partner.

Economic violence happens when a partner either forcefully takes their spouse’s money or deliberately withholds financial support including refusing to support the children.
Sexual violence under domestic violence is where the perpetrator forces their partner into acts of a sexual nature.

Why it is important to report a domestic violence incident
A domestic violence adviser we spoke to put emphasis on the need to report a domestic violence incident as soon as after its occurrence.

“The incidence needs to be recorded at a police station if one is to pursue the matter further. Even in instances where one feels the injuries are not so serious as to warrant a hospital visit but still feels violated, the victim should report to the nearest police station,” she said.

The adviser said any organisations that may come in to help the victim work with the police and a case that had been reported to the police means there is documentation of the incident to work with.