GOROKA, Papua New Guinea — Claiming that the rice she had cooked for dinner was too hot, Ambai’s husband suddenly punched her in the temple and dragged her out of the house by her hair. Another beating began, watched silently by her two aunts, who knew that speaking up would get them beaten as well.

He forced her to her knees at the small river behind their house and pulled out his rusty, homemade pistol. She felt the metal on the back of her neck, and waited for her husband to kill her.

“I thought, this is finally the end,” Ambai recalled. “At least the beatings will finish.”

Instead, he pulled her back inside and bashed her eye with a tire iron, cracking her orbital socket and sending her to the hospital once again. After a year of abuse, Ambai, who is 23 years old, finally felt she had to go to a shelter.