RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt 

For 23 years, Valdeen Tama­ra Shears was a fa­mil­iar face in the me­dia land­scape, cov­er­ing sto­ries of crime, gen­der-based vi­o­lence to do­mes­tic tragedies. But be­hind the by­lines and head­lines, Shears was silent­ly en­dur­ing a night­mare of abuse.

In a can­did in­ter­view with Sun­day Guardian Women’s Em­pow­er­ment mag­a­zine, Shears, a moth­er of sev­en, re­vealed her har­row­ing jour­ney from vic­tim to sur­vivor, shed­ding light on the silent strug­gles en­dured by count­less in­di­vid­u­als trapped in abu­sive re­la­tion­ships.

“Fun­ny that I was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing so much hurt while writ­ing about the pain of oth­ers ... I don’t think much of my col­leagues in the me­dia re­al­ly knew what was hap­pen­ing or the ex­tent of it,” Shears con­fessed.

She said her or­deal be­gan long be­fore her ca­reer took off, with the first signs of abuse emerg­ing five years be­fore she en­tered in­to jour­nal­ism in 2000. Over the years, the abuse es­ca­lat­ed, leav­ing Shears to suf­fer in si­lence, hid­ing her bruis­es and scars be­hind ex­cus­es and false nar­ra­tives.

On one oc­ca­sion, her abuser head-butted her, leav­ing her with sev­en stitch­es. “I told no one in the me­dia. I was too ashamed. I told every­one we were do­ing home re­pairs, and a sheet of gal­vanise cut me. Most peo­ple be­lieved that ver­sion,” Shears re­count­ed, high­light­ing the iso­la­tion and shame that of­ten ac­com­pa­ny do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

De­spite the fa­cade of nor­mal­cy, Shears’ per­son­al life was plagued by chaos and fear. “Pover­ty fol­lowed us around like a shad­ow be­cause he was a chron­ic chain cig­a­rette smok­er and gam­bler. We lived un­der one ide­al, ‘feast to­day, famine to­mor­row,’” she shared, paint­ing a pic­ture of the tur­moil with­in her home.

The turn­ing point came when Shears found her­self alone with sev­en chil­dren af­ter be­ing laid off as a free­lance writer. With new-found de­ter­mi­na­tion, she made the coura­geous de­ci­sion to break free from her abuser, seek­ing refuge in the strength of her faith and the sup­port of her com­mu­ni­ty. “It’s al­most as if some part of me knew I was not go­ing to stay,” Shears re­flect­ed, ac­knowl­edg­ing the in­ner re­silience that pro­pelled her to­wards free­dom. Dri­ven by a de­sire to turn her pain in­to pur­pose, Shears em­barked on a mis­sion to help oth­ers trapped in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances. “Now I aim to help oth­ers out of that dark pit to shine a light, even if it’s a glim­mer,” she de­clared pas­sion­ate­ly.

She added, “It helped tremen­dous­ly that I was in the me­dia, as this had de­vel­oped my net­work­ing skills. I have a knack for con­nect­ing peo­ple to goods and ser­vices, and I’m not afraid or ashamed now to ask for help.”

In 2018, Shears found­ed The ABA Move­ment, ad­vo­cat­ing for leg­isla­tive changes to pro­tect vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. Her tire­less ef­forts cul­mi­nat­ed in the draft­ing of a doc­u­ment call­ing for the use of GPS track­ing de­vices to mon­i­tor per­pe­tra­tors and alert au­thor­i­ties of po­ten­tial breach­es.

“I’m emo­tion­al be­cause my heart hurts for vic­tims and sur­vivors out there who are still stuck in their sit­u­a­tions and think there is no way out,” Shears con­fessed, her voice tinged with em­pa­thy and de­ter­mi­na­tion.

Shears launched her book “Free from Men­tal Bars–The True Sto­ry of One Woman’s Es­cape from the Cy­cle of Abuse”, dur­ing the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Point Fortin Bor­ough Cel­e­bra­tions. It was launched un­der the aus­pices of May­or Clyde James at the Bor­ough Women Sym­po­sium. Shears al­so read at the Bo­cas Lit Fes­ti­val.

Con­tin­u­ing with her ad­vo­ca­cy work, Shear ex­plained there were still a lot of leg­isla­tive changes that were need­ed to heal af­ter do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.  She wants coun­selling in­ter­ven­tion for sec­ondary wit­ness­es of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, pri­mar­i­ly chil­dren. “I al­so want moth­ers to try to un­der­stand the long-term emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal dam­age that can be left over when or if child­hood coun­selling isn’t treat­ed as nec­es­sary when ex­tract­ing vic­tims and sur­vivors out of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence sit­u­a­tions,” she said.

Shears wants to see a mul­ti-pronged com­mit­tee es­tab­lished con­nect­ing agen­cies and min­istries to­wards a more sur­vivor-friend­ly ap­proach to com­bat­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, gen­der-based vi­o­lence and in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence. “I al­so want the pass­ing of sev­er­al pieces of leg­is­la­tion, amend­ed or in­clud­ed in my life­time, that will pos­i­tive­ly im­pact the lives of vic­tims and sur­vivors,” she said.

She is al­so hop­ing to work with a shel­ter for abused women and chil­dren. Apart from be­ing a men­tor, Shears is al­so the founder of the Colour Me Or­ange cam­paign, which is aimed at rais­ing aware­ness and lob­by­ing for amend­ed leg­is­la­tion to bet­ter pro­tect vic­tims and sur­vivors of do­mes­tic abuse and GBV/IPV.

Her book, spon­sored by SHI­DAA Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment So­lu­tions, is al­so avail­able at all lead­ing book­stores. Shears was al­so one of five fi­nal­ists for the An­gos­tu­ra Cham­pi­on’s Award, and she has set up a What­sApp Sur­vivors Sup­port chat called “The Over­com­ers Club”, which has 27 par­tic­i­pants. Any­one want­i­ng to con­tact Shears can call her at 364-1523 or email colourme­o­r­angett@gmail.com