“My dad was like my best friend, and so for him to go and be taken away by another woman, it was just really hard. And I wanted attention, but I was seeking for that male attention, and so I just found it in my boyfriend. He was the next thing.”
She said she was “100%” in love with him at the time and became pregnant. A few weeks after giving birth to her first son at 17, Motu said that they got married despite her not wanting to, but her faith background and the “sin” of having a child out of marriage added to the pressure.
After that, Motu said he started to break her down mentally.
“He started controlling me first, and I didn’t take any notice. I was just like, okay, and I started listening and obeying... because every time I’d snap back, then he would retaliate, yelling at me, and I couldn’t understand because I was never raised like that.”
The violence started after giving birth to her first daughter, starting with slaps and punches and escalating from there.
Motu said she tried to reach out to the police and to family for help and support, but her husband’s gang connections made escape difficult.
“I never won that, so like my family would get hurt by the gang because he comes from a gang family. My uncle tried to help me so many times. He got beaten up and then he got put in the cells.”
The experience was traumatising for her children - Motu had another boy with her ex before the relationship ended - as it was for her.
“I was lucky that my oldest son didn’t really witness much because I quickly gave him to my aunties and I just told them, like, please just look after him. He saw me get hit by a car and run over. And so that was traumatising.
“But my daughter was my saving grace. She’s witnessed so much. She saved me so many times. I’ve been drowned. I’ve had my head to the toilet, everything. She’s watched me be stabbed and she saved me so many times.
“The last one was when she wanted to risk her life to save me. And that was the turning point for me. She jumped in front of the knife. She grabbed, she grabbed his hand and the knife just missed me. It hit me, but like it missed my chest and stuff.
“It was her that saved my life. But the strength and courage and that fairness that my daughter carried, I thought, why can’t I carry that? And that was the day that I built the courage and strength ... when I saw her trying to save me. because she wanted to keep me alive, because she wanted me to be there for her siblings.”
Motu got out of the relationship and fought to get him arrested, and he was eventually sent to jail.
Her suffering didn’t stop there though, with Motu receiving threats from his friends over what she had done. It’s partially what got her into boxing, and she told Bennett that things changed for her when she started training.
Motu has become a strong advocate as a result of her experiences and wants to make the world better for women and their children so they don’t go through these experiences.
She has also learned to adapt and move on, prompted largely by the struggles of her second-eldest son, the last child she had with her ex.
“At 9 years old, he wanted to commit suicide, and he was in a very dark place. He didn’t want to be alive because he blamed himself for what I had been through. But also he wanted to speak to his father. And he didn’t know how to speak to him because if he spoke to him, he felt like he was letting me down.
“And so when I heard that, it broke my heart. And I didn’t want to bury my baby.”
Motu said that she had to look at her own hate and resentment and put that aside, and allow her children to make their own decisions without letting her experiences and emotions control them.
“I didn’t realise I was already starting teaching them how to be narcissistic, and I didn’t want them to be like him.
“It was the hardest thing I ever done was talk to him and be like, you need to have a relationship with your kids. And all I want is an apology. I want an apology for all you’ve done.
“And so he gave me an apology and that’s all I wanted to hear. And I said, I don’t want to be hurt anymore. And you’re not going to hurt me anymore.”
Listen to the full episode for more from Motu about her experiences with domestic violence, why children are our future, and stories from her career as a boxer.
Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast hosted by former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett. New episodes are available every Sunday.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
