wife on Women’s Day’
Tangeni Amupadhi
A well-known Johannesburg psychiatrist is to appear in court next week on charges of battering his wife on National Women’s Day.
According to Yeoville police, where the woman laid charges of common assault, the psychiatrist – who cannot be named for professional reasons – attacked his wife twice on August 10.
The psychiatrist shared his practice with Omar Sabadia, who was convicted last year of paying assassins to abduct and murder his wife, Sahida.
The doctor is also a marriage counsellor who helps other couples in trouble.
The woman’s police statement claims that her husband pushed her down the staircase at their home in Observatory.
After the plunge, he allegedly followed her downstairs and began beating her with a shoe.
The woman said she held her head in her hands in a desperate attempt to protect her face.
She then allegedly ran out of the house and persuaded her neighbours to call the police, who calmed the situation when they arrived and took her to a doctor.
The woman claims that later that day she called her husband’s nephew to tell him she had been beaten by her husband again. The psychiatrist had been convicted of assaulting his wife 10 years ago.
The nephew arrived at the house, but the psychiatrist allegedly intervened and told him to leave.
Realising her husband could become violent again, the woman claims she tried to leave the bedroom.
Her husband allegedly followed her and pushed her down the stairs again, but she managed to hold on to the handrail.
The woman claims that for two days after the assault she lost the use of her arms and her fingers.
The case has also been reported to an organisation that deals with violence against women.
Although People Opposing Women Abuse (Powa) would not confirm whether the woman had approached them for help, the organisation’s representative, Palesa Makhetha, says women in high- profile families are under pressure to keep quiet about abuse because of their standing.
“Usually the husband portrays a more likeable image outside the family than when they are are at home,” she says.
“The wives are more under pressure to keep quiet because they feel guilty when things go wrong in the family. But what people have to realise is that, at the end of the day it is about yourself and not the abuser.”
National statistics show that one out of six women in South Africa is assaulted by a husband or partner.
According to research undertaken by Powa three years ago a woman is killed by her partner every week in Gauteng alone.
“Current research that is still under way shows that intimate femicide [killing of women by partners] is definitely on the increase,” says Makhetha.