mother and child felt accepted in a club for survivors of violence: they ‘did not judge’

as yeiby cardona tells it, theirs started as a love story. she was an economist in her native colombia, with a good job, a respectable salary and a partner who was proud of her.she chose to give up her job after their daughter was born. when the baby was two months old, the violence started.“after i gave birth, i was nothing,” she recalled. “he said i was ugly and that i had lost my shape with my pregnancy, which was not true.”read more: when intimacy kills: finding a way outwhen cardona said she wanted to continue her studies, he told her she was not intelligent enough — and that her diploma was useful only as toilet paper.they had decided to move to the country and she contributed her savings toward building a house there. but isolated from the outside world, “i felt like a prisoner in my own home,” recalled cardona, now 39 and living in montreal with her eight-year-old daughter, elena carvajal.“he left me all alone in the house, far from the city. he humiliated me because i had no money and told me i was good for nothing,” she recalled.“when he drank, he would insult me and say horrible things, hit me, turn over furniture, throw things. or he would call to say he was with a girlfriend. ‘she is prettier than you,’ he would say.”financially dependent on her husband, her self-confidence eroded by his infidelities and his taunts, she “felt small and powerless,” cardona said. “i cried all the time. i felt life was not worth living.”when she tried to explain what she was feeling, he was dismissive. “he made me believe everything was my fault, since i was depressed and barely ate or slept,” she said.“he did not realize that the reason i was so sad was because of him. he is a narcissist — and i was a victim.”cardona lived in anguish and fear, she said, not knowing when the next emotional or physical blows would come. “i knew the situation was bad, but i tolerated it. i hid it all from my family and friends.“he was not the same person i had fallen in love with. i had idealized him … and i was sad to see the real person.”she endured the violence for four years — a time she remembers as “the darkest period of my life.”eventually, with support from a psychologist and sustained by her deep religious faith, cardona found the strength and confidence to leave the relationship.her own father was violent with her mother as she was growing up and it was deeply painful for her. “i said: ‘my daughter will never suffer even one per cent of what i did.’”in time, she said, “i was able to see my husband without rancour. i had no bad feelings toward him.”he agreed that cardona and their daughter could leave colombia. she chose to move to montreal, where she has a sibling, and enrolled at lasalle college in early 2023 to study business management.a friend at school told her about logifem, a montreal organization which provides shelter, transitional housing and support services to women — with or without children — who are unhoused or at risk of homelessness because their housing situation is unstable. cardona and her daughter moved into a logifem shelter for mothers and children, la lumineuse.

women who use logifem services often have a history of intimate partner violence, said executive director sally richmond. “we see high numbers of women in situations of housing instability who have experienced violence or post-separation violence — particularly where perpetrators use the children to exercise control and make threats around custody.”at logifem, cardona learned of a 10-week program for mothers and children who have experienced intimate partner violence: kids’ club & moms’ empowerment, developed by an american academic and researcher, sandra graham-bermann. logifem is the first organization in quebec to offer the program, which has been in place since early 2025. the mothers’ and children’s groups meet at the same time, separately.in the mothers’ group, cardona found “other women who had endured the same situation. i identified with them and felt safe and accepted. i realized i was not alone. i found people who had been through what i had been through, who understood, who listened — and who did not judge,” she recalled. “they cried with me. and i cried with them.”for the mothers, the program “is about upholding empowerment and it is also a safe space for them to share their experience,” said abigaelle normand, co-ordinator of kids’ club & moms’ empowerment.empowering women is in part about helping them to rebuild and also about creating models for healthy relationships so they recognize the warning signs of unhealthy ones, richmond said. “empowerment is part of the cycle of prevention,” she said.“we are there to encourage them to talk to one another, to share their fears and hopes,” normand said.although all the women experienced violence, not all have the same level of awareness that they did, richmond said: some are clear that they are leaving a violent situation; others are leaving a relationship they knew wasn’t right, but have been unable to articulate it as violent.“women are not always sure about their rights, especially immigrant women,” she said. “and so sometimes the violent ex does what he has the power to do.”women may be experiencing financial or emotional coercive control — subjected to a sustained pattern of controlling, threatening or humiliating behaviour, but unsure whether that constitutes intimate partner violence, richmond said.normand described how, in a session on coercive control, “some participants realize for the first time what coercive control is, that they experienced it in their relationship and that it is a very real expression of domestic violence.”the catch-22 of coercive control, she said, is that the victim can never be right. “her partner will always find a reason to criticize or mock or belittle her. small acts can seem somewhat banal but, really, the notion of coercive control is about domination and fear.”perpetrators of coercive control often have access to their victim’s email and social media accounts, normand said. in an insidious tactic of coercive control known as gaslighting, the perpetrator tries to convince the victim that she is being hysterical and that none of what she is describing is real.among the participants in the mothers’ empowerment group, she said, “there is a sense of recognition and relief, as in ‘ok, so i wasn’t crazy.’”research is showing that children are more affected by intimate partner violence than was previously thought, normand said. “if children hear screaming or witness coercive control, it has an impact on their emotional development.”in gatherings of the kids’ club, aimed at children aged 6 to 12, the group’s two facilitators “work on kids being able to recognize their emotions,” normand said.

issues brought up include past and current fears and sometimes facilitators enact a situation featuring conflict and raised voices and ask the kids to speak out.“we talk about healthy conflict resolution,” normand said. “we want for the kids to believe the violence is not their fault.”cardona said that for her daughter, elena, “the program was great.”“what i liked the most about the kids’ club program was the games, the activities, making friends and having snacks,” elena recalled.“i learned to share, to respect others and that there are people who are different from me.”she said she looked forward to thursdays, when the group met, “and i would remind my mother that we were going to the kids’ club: i would be ready before her!”funding for the kids’ club & moms’ empowerment program is from quebec’s integrated government strategy to counteract sexual violence, domestic violence and to rebuild trust 2022‑2027. the program is set to run until the end of march 2027. between now and then, a decision will be made about whether to seek additional funding to keep it going, richmond said.cardona graduated from lasalle last june and is working full time as a bookkeeper for a company where she did a student internship. after 18 months at logifem, she and elena moved last summer to an apartment on montreal’s west island.father and daughter speak weekly via facetime. “he is not a present father, but i don’t want my daughter to think her father abandoned her,” said cardona.and she and elena are doing well. “i work full time, we have a safe home — and i feel unstoppable.”for more on the kids’ club & moms’ empowerment program, open to anyone living on the island of montreal, email ceem@logifem.org or call abigaelle normand at 263-379-1448.people facing intimate partner violence can contact sos violence conjugale 24 hours a day at 1-800-363-9010.