For Hanna, from the Ternopil region, the ability to choose and defend her boundaries did not come easily, but rather through years of violence and humiliation at the hands of her alcoholic husband. Before the marriage, the woman, who grew up in a small village, was repeatedly subjected to toxic remarks because of her disability. Hanna was born with one leg shorter than the other. The way others perceived her through the prism of her physical disability led to complexes and a constant need to "prove something to someone," she says.
"Since I was a child I was told that I would not be successful in anything, including university studies, because I would not be able to go to the city to study. But I did. I studied for five years in Lviv to become an economist. As I grew up, my friends started getting married and I was told that I would never get married," Hanna said. "Years went by, I had relationships, but it never came to marriage - they didn't want to marry me because of my leg.
Even at the start of dating, the woman had doubts about her future husband. Yevhen liked to drink, but at that time he held back and did not show any open aggression. According to Hanna, she did not have strong feelings for him but felt sorry because of his stories about his difficult childhood with his alcoholic mother. "I had suffered a lot in my life, too, so I thought that maybe trouble would bring us together," Hanna says.
But as time went on, Yevhen only got closer to the vodka, and every time he drank, he bullied his wife, played loud music at night, and raised his hand in moments of disagreement. Because of her husband's alcoholism, Hanna stopped visiting friends, going to parties and holidays, and even quit her job where she had good career prospects.
Hanna's pregnancy did not change the situation either. According to her, she prayed throughout the pregnancy to carry and give birth to a healthy child, as her state did not stop her drunken husband's aggression. In the first years after the birth of their son, Yevhen tried to seek treatment, such as rehabilitation programs and counseling with a priest and a healer, but it had only a temporary effect.
According to Hanna, she repeatedly talked about ending the relationship, but her husband used intimidation to keep her around.
"He kept telling me that as a former cop, he had ties and would not be punished for his actions. Once he hinted that if I talked about divorce he would do the most painful thing to me. I was afraid that he would take my son away from me because of my disability," Hanna says.
Yevhen's problems with alcohol also affected the family's finances. The business they started together, renting out a holiday complex, was "almost bankrupted" as the man brought his drinking buddies there, his wife says. In the end, the family had to sell it. Instead, Yevhen started working as a handyman, but according to Hanna, he didn't care about the number of customers or the amount of money he made.
"If clients called, he had work, if they didn't, he sat still. He didn't care if we had money to buy food, as long as there were vodka and cigarettes in the house - otherwise, he would beat me. He would drink and then growl at me for not buying more, because I had to know he would want more," the survivor said.
To "have money to survive", the woman was forced to take on any part-time job that did not require full-time employment: selling cosmetics and helping with the accounting. Despite the sleepless nights caused by her husband's alcoholism, Hanna's son never missed school or clubs without a valid reason. Even though he has rarely been able to study in a calm atmosphere.
"I wonder where my son gets his strength and inspiration. He is a good student and has a passion for singing. My husband didn't care if the child had an exam or a performance tomorrow. The music was blaring in the house, he was shouting with his guitar, and if you tried to say something, he immediately started punching you," the survivor says.
When the boy became a teenager, Yevhen began to raise his hand against him. According to Hanna, this fact forced her to realize that she had to change something, at least for the sake of her child. She saw no point in going to the police because of her previous negative experiences, and she knew nothing about specialized services to help survivors of domestic violence.
"The neighbors called the police several times, but by the time they arrived, he had either run away or they took him for a few hours, released him, and then he abused me more," the woman said.
But in December of last year, it didn't happen that way. According to Hanna, she doubted she would survive that day. "After drinking five bottles, he woke up, couldn't turn on the music, and smashed the TV in a rage. Then he started throwing me around and dragging me on the floor by my hair. I fainted twice and my son brought me back to life. At one point I was lying there exhausted and I saw him holding my child over the gas stove and putting a glass in his mouth," the woman said.
When the elderly neighbor came to their flat to complain about the noise, Yevhen responded with threats and physical violence. She called the police and took Hanna and her son to her flat. After talking to the survivors, the police left to calm the man down. When they returned, however, they did not advise Hanna and her son to return to the apartment but instead suggested that they go to a crisis room for people suffering from domestic violence.
On the way there, the police took the woman to the trauma center, where doctors stitched up her arm, which had been cut by broken glass, and checked her for a concussion. Hanna refused to state the beating, fearing that "the father's imprisonment would one day affect the child". In the crisis room and later at the daycare center for social and psychological support, which was opened as part of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Ukraine project called 'Cities and Communities Free from Domestic Violence', Hanna and her son received psychological and legal support to comply with the emergency injunction and apply for a restrictive order.
With the help of the police and social workers, she managed to evict Yevhen from her apartment, despite his repeated pleas for the women to forgive him. The couple officially divorced in March.
"The police still come to our house from time to time to check if we are being disturbed. It's good for the child, he feels more protected. After everything got better, after working with a psychologist, my son's stomach stopped hurting, the cause of which could not be diagnosed with any tests", the woman says.
For Hanna, this experience - and the help of the psychologists - was also a catalyst for a change in her self-image and a reassessment of her outlook on life. "I've been waiting for changes for almost 17 years. I took on too much, I had a complex that held me back because I was always trying to prove that I was no worse than anyone else, that I was a full-fledged woman like everyone else, able to cope with life. Now I will not allow anyone to lay a finger on me, not even a word," says the survivor.
Hanna's advice to all women in a similar situation is to not waste time, to choose themselves, children, and to seek help, and to all those who witness violence - not to be indifferent to other people's grief.
"If I had known earlier that there was such protection for women, I would have run away long before all the beatings. It used to be crazy for me to open my soul to strangers, but the specialists are experienced in these matters, they will not give bad advice, they will listen and restore your faith in yourself," says the woman.
The work of the crisis room and the daycare center for social and psychological support is made possible by the ‘Cities and Communities Free from Domestic Violence’ project. The project is being implemented in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine with the support of the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom as part of the UNFPA program on combating and preventing gender-based violence.
