Please stop making one BAD decision after another and GET OUT!!!!!!!! going back to this guy was one of your first mistakes. Why do you get married if this is the case and only because you were pregnant? It went down just like a statistic from there. GET OUT.

Context--The Philippines is a very catholic country. There is no sex education, no access to abortion and so much misinformation about sex and reproduction that it is unfathomable for an American to begin to comprehend. Choosing to be a single mother brings incredible levels of shame on a family, and there is even more stigma attached to divorce.

The LW probably has very few choices. You recommend speaking with a pediatrician, but regular medical care is rare and very expensive. Clergy will tell her to submit.

If she does divorce her spouse, the most likely outcome is that her daughter will go to a friend or family member and she will end up working as a domestic in Singapore or the UAE.

I appreciate that Barbara is trying to help, but there is a complete lack of understanding of the cultural context.

I think this woman obviously needs help and an intervention. However, I think there's limited value to publishing letters from other countries, without knowledge of the culture and resources available there. To give advice to an overseas person as while using the United State's systems and cultures as a frame of reference is not helpful to the letter writer and comes across as dismissive and ethnocentric.

The abuse this woman is seeing is wrong and needs to be stopped. But legal definitions of domestic and child abuse vary wildly from country to country, as does the resources available to help victims escape, and the cultural stigma or ability of women to function on their own without a husband. It's just not helpful to say, "Wow, you need to get out. Ask for help," when you can't say for sure if help is even available.

Carmelitta, if you are concerned that your clergyman will not support you, please consider talking to a minister of a Unitarian Universalist church if there is one near you. UU's are extremely focused on the health and well-being of all people and would never suggest that you "just try harder" with your husband, or simply "pray for guidance". The minister would know where you could get help and would not try to convert you in anyway - UU's are not evangelical.

But please do your best to get out of this situation. Your instincts are correct that a violent environment is damaging to your daughter AND to you as well. Good luck.