On December 11 the ACT NOW! blog featured a story about a policeman's wife who has suffered repeated violence at the hands of her husband. On December 21 the Post Courier newspaper followed up with the story below, by Nellie Setepano, about another policeman's wife.

As a result of these two stories ACT NOW! has contacted the Police Commissioner to demand action.

Joy's story

It is truely sad. This Christmas will be the same like other Christmas she has gone through with her abusive cop husband. While families gather to celebrate this festive season Joy Wartovo, a mother of two will be seeking for shelter and places to hide in Port Moresby to keep her two children and herself safe from their father. She has been doing this for the past six years.

Christmas is around the corner and at this time of the year, families are getting together to celebrate the joyous event that marks the birth of Jesus Christ.

In Papua New Guinea, there is joy and peace in the homes of families but this is not the case for a mother and her two children in Port Moresby. They are on the run from the law, in the form of a cop, who happens to be her husband and father of the children

She is 26 and the only law this woman who was once pretty has broken is trying to be a happy loving wife to her abusive policeman husband.

For Joy Wartovo, the past six years was hell, living under the same roof as her cop husband who loves nothing better than torture, threaten and abuse his wife, at one time from 9pm till 4am recently.
Now the battered wife and her children, 4 and 2, have gone into hiding again somewhere in Port Moresby.

Even the police internal affairs unit, to which she has complained bitterly for so many years, is powerless to help the battered woman and her two innocent children.

From her secret hiding place yesterday, Joy revealed the horror of her six year ordeal. Her husband is a member of the mobile squad who carries with him a government issued pistol at all times.

His method of abuse is astounding and makes a Stephen King horror novel look second best. This includes daily beatings for no apparent reason, abuses, burns with a hot clothes iron, bashings with an axe, beatings with hammers and pliers and threats of shootings.

The daily thrashings have reached a point where even her children are traumatised. As I sat in her secret hiding place, the children became nervous and jumpy every time they heard a loud noise.
Ms Wartovo said yesterday that she could not stand the beatings anymore and the apparent inaction of the police department, has decided to go public to save herself, her children and the other policemen’s wife who, like her, have suffered the same in their police barracks homes.

The police internal affairs officer in charge of the case Ben Vinarang said yesterday that he was aware of the complaints but understood that the couple had reconciled.

When told that horror stories related by Ms Wartovo, Mr Vinarang said he was not aware of the abuses and torture and that the couple “was living peacefully and in harmony”.

With a name like joy, life was meant to be joyful but Ms Wartovo’s nightmares began when she first met her husband, a previously married and separated father of one.

Ms Wartovo is part Tolai, East New Britain while her husband is part Tolai and part Orokaiva from Oro province.

For the past six years she has suffered at the hand of a man she described as “alcoholic and aggressive” who flew into a jealous rage for even the flimsiest of reasons.

She recalled all the bad things that happened to her two weeks into her marriage up to yesterday. The constant beating that stemmed from minor allegations that her husband brought up almost everyday.

“When I did not cut the beans, he found that as an excuse to argue. If he saw me in the market, he’d pick an argument. If I said hello to my cousin brothers or male in-laws, he would allege that I had an affair with them,” Ms Wartovo said.

She said her husband threatened her every day, adding her complaints to police would be futile.

“You will not get anywhere even if you seek police for help. I do the dirty work for my bosses so I will not be disciplined or dismissed by them,” he told her.

Ms Wartovo ran away with her children on numerous occasions but the husband always found out where she was and brought her back for more beatings.

Even close relatives shunned her out of fear of her rogue husband and his pistol.

She recalls her husband threatening her whole family and giving her a kina and making her run to the store and back for a toilet roll while the public watched.

She is also recovering from a six month utopian operation but was told lately by her doctor that an abscess has formed as a result of the abuse.

Currently Ms Wartovo is nursing a broken finger, a swollen body, re-infected abdomen, cuts to parts of her body and ugly scars from burns to her left arm and left thigh.

Her swollen body is the result of beatings from the back of the axe, which she put up with from 9pm to 4am one night recently.