“He was beating walls around me” – CAS Mwangangi opens up about her abusive boyfriend

Health CAS Mercy Mukui Mwangangi has for the first time opened up about her former relationship where she went through abuse.

When she had a nasty dispute with her partner, she was fresh from Australia’s University of Adelaide, where she obtained a master’s degree in Health Economics and Policy.

She had also been an active member of feminist groups at the same campus. Her partner went mad on a night in 2015 that she will never forget.

She had to move quickly to protect herself in the midst of shock and terror.

“That night at 3 am when we had the altercation, I remember thinking, okay so this has happened, whom should I call? And interestingly the first person I called was my lawyer to see if there was a legal recourse,” she said.

She shared the tale on Wednesday at the Kenya School of Government’s Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response scientific symposium in Nairobi.

Despite the fact that her ex-boyfriend never physically assaulted her, she said he was enraged.
Abuse does not always have to be physical, but it can progress to battering.

“He was beating walls around me. He was enraged and there was a lot of scuffling,” Mwangangi said.

“I remember thinking I am an empowered 29-year-old woman. How could this happen to me?”

Mwangangi said she was shocked at how she found herself in such an abusive relationship.

“I am privileged I am not from a poor background, and I have resources. I am educated. I have my own home, an apartment, my own car, and everything I needed to empower myself to be an independent female,” she said.

“So it can happen to any of us be it male, be it female, young or old.”

Mercy said she opened up so that women understand anyone can be a victim of gender-based violence.

She uses a quote from Maid, a book by American author Stephanie Landon on her experience of domestic abuse and poverty.

It describes her partner’s behaviour. “Before they bite, they bark. Before they hit you, they hit near you.”

The CAS, now aged 36, separated from the abusive partner.

In 2020, she said, she was in another relationship with “a very supportive partner”.

She told KTN’s Health Digest: “I am highly married to my work, but I do have a partner who is very supportive, and he is another cheerleader in my court.”