00:00 This woman doesn't want to share her real name.
00:04 Her husband has often beaten her.
00:07 I wasn't born with a broken finger.
00:12 I got it because my husband beat me.
00:14 I wasn't born with half an ear.
00:17 It's the result of the repeated violence I was subjected to at home.
00:21 I almost lost my ear and it's all because of poverty.
00:25 Women worldwide who are trapped with violent husbands cannot live if they can't support themselves economically.
00:32 The problem is worse in rural communities where traditional values still dominate.
00:39 Abagna Patience is part of a network counselling local women.
00:44 In this community, most of our men feel they are superior over us.
00:54 And because women are lacking the skills when it comes to market or when it comes to job.
01:02 And they get married to the men who are working.
01:06 They feel they are more than the women.
01:09 Lamisi tried to leave her husband three times before she met Patience who advised her to report him to the police.
01:17 But she is facing opposition from the community.
01:22 If I take him to the police station, my fellow women will mock me and say a good woman should not do it.
01:28 They will tell you every woman must endure pain and abuse.
01:32 So why take him to police?
01:34 This tacit social acceptance makes it hard for outsiders to get men to stop.
01:41 These women are women who don't even know where to go and who to talk to.
01:47 Because of how the society has taken everything to be.
01:51 Even if they tell their client's head or maybe their elders, they feel that this is something you can't settle among yourselves.
01:58 Meanwhile, these women go through emotional trauma.
02:01 So me being a lady, when they come to me, they are free to express their feelings and comfortable to talk to.
02:09 The United Nations says a quarter of Ghanaian women suffer domestic abuse.
02:14 The people helping to empower them say it will take more than a change in traditional beliefs.
02:19 Only economic independence can help women escape gender-based violence.
02:24 lens.
