Money should not be a reason to condone abuse – Lawyer advises

Lawyer, gender activist and entrepreneur, Martina Akusika Mensah Esq. has advised that for no reason, not even financial constraint, should women condone abusive relationships and marriages.

In an interview with Eunice Tornyi on e.TV Ghana’s African Women’s Voices show, she said this in response to why some women endure abusive relationships.

“Some women actually condone abuse because they are not economically stable. They feel like there will be no one to take care of them when they leave because they have grown used to being taken care of by their husbands.

"Sometimes, in such domestic relationships, there may be agreements such as being a housewife while the man takes care of her and because she is financially dependent on the man, it becomes difficult to break free”, she observed.

The lawyer advised that no matter what the situation is, women need to ‘run away’ from abusive men and relationships because it is no news that this could lead to their death. She noted that even if the woman is worried about how she will be able to take care of her children financially if she leaves that relationship, her greater worry should be how her kids will survive if she is to lose her life from that marriage.

According to her, it would be better to leave the marriage because even if the woman has no money to take care of her children, the man is still obliged by law to take care of them. She also advised women to take legal action against abusive husbands because the law will provide protection for them.