Case Study

WHR CASE STUDIES

Name : Sita
Age : 33
Location : Godawari
Cause of husbands’ death: Accident
Children: 11 year old son

Sita got married to Ram in the year 1994 A.D. Sita was only 20 years old when she got married. Her life was filled with joy and happiness and she felt like she was the luckiest woman in the world. Sita lived with her husband, her mother in law, brother in law and his wife. Unfortunately, one day Ram died in an accident. This broke her heart and all her dreams. When Ram died, Sita was sucking her child who she says gave her the strength to live the rest of her life. As there was no one who worked in the family, Sita had to perform the entire household tasks.

She was forced by her brother in law to have illicit sexual relations with him. Sita was a single woman (widow) and she had no power in her own house after her husband's death. Her brother in law used to hit her son and warned that if she did not sleep with him then he would not give her little son food to eat. Every member in the family knew about this abuse but they remained silent. As Sita's brother in law was the only one who earned in the house, he holds the most power and no one dared to go against him. Sita's mother-in-law used to hate her, she even used to verbally abuse her and make her work like a servant. Even after all this, Sita could not leave the house because she did not have anywhere to go. No one was alive in her parental house either. She was an uneducated woman and she did not know about her rights. Sita did not have any skill nor any resources to leave the house.

After a while single women members of WHR came to know about Sita's pathetic story and tried to talk with her mother in law .But she spoke very harshly with them that they will “spoil” her daughter in law like themselves were “spoiled”.

But the WHR members did not give up. They succeeded in enrolling Sita in a tailoring center for sewing course for 6 months. Now Sita has her own tailoring shop and is giving work to other single women like her.

Forced to have sexual relationship with father in law!

Name : Radha shah
Age : 25
Location : Saptari
Cause of husband death : Accident
Children : 5 years one son

Six year ago Radha got married to Krishna from Saptari district in the traditional way and their life was full of love and happiness. In the family there was the mother-in-law, father-in-law and Krishna who earned money while Radha was the home maker. There was always plenty to go round and Radha’s in-laws loved her a lot. Days passed and Radha became pregnant and delivered a baby boy. After the birth of their child the love between Radha and her husband grew deeper. This couple always thought about how they would look after their son.

Very sadly in 2002 A.D. Radha’s husband died suddenly their her son was just six months old. After that Radha’s life turned in a different direction. The treatment from her in-laws changed and Radha was forced to work, not only in the house but also outside as a daily wage laborer.

Her father-in-law had his evil eye on her and she was forcibly sexually abused by him for five years. She was not able to talk about this as her father-in-law had threatened to kill her son if she told anyone. Although the other members of family knew, no-one had enough courage to speak out on her behalf.

In 2006 A.D., Women for Human Rights (WHR), single women group held capacity building training for single women (widows) in Saptari. Radha took part in this and became aware of the rights of single women. She explained her problems to the single women’s groups in Saptari after which they went to her home and spoke to her father-in-law. Of course, he said he did not accept this and told them he was not scared that they would go and complain about him. The single women’s group organized a press conference and filed Radha’s case with the CDO, later her father-in-law accepted his misbehaver. She also filed a case for getting her share of her property. Radha’s case was shown on Nepal 1 Television in Asoj 2006 A.D.

Radha now lives alone with her 5 year old son.

Encouragement through struggle

Name : Rita
Age : 35
Location : Chitwan
Cause of husband death : Sickness
Children : One 10 years daughter

Rita was a daughter in a happy family and grew up in a very contented way. Her marriage was arranged and her husband was a caring and understanding she had no difficulties of any kind during her marriage. Her husband’s family also behaved well towards her. After 5 years of marriage, her husband became sick and they brought him to Kathmandu for treatment but he died 22 days later. While he was being treated, none of her husband’s family sent any money, nor did they come to see him. And even when they heard about his death, they barely took any interest and the funeral rites were completed with support of people in Kathmandu. Later the family accused her by saying: "After our son's death we were not given a chance to look at his face."

Later they all went to Mangalpur VDC in Chitwan to complete the rituals, but there the family gave false information about her, saying that she might have killed her husband by poisoning him. For this reason, she had to get help from her own parents. At the beginning, her brother helped her to start poultry farming. During this period she sent her daughter to her husband’s parents for her to claim her property ownership but they tried to refuse her this right. After her husband's death she didn’t want to go to Kathmandu but one day she heard about WHR which was looking for single women to attend 3 days’ training. Seeing this as an opportunity, she went to Kathmandu for the training. From the training, she learned that if a woman gets encouragement, nothing will be impossible for her.

In 2002 A.D. she formed the Single Women’s Group in Chitwan. In order to dismiss a traditional belief that Brahmins shouldn't do butchery work, she started that type of business and soon her neighbours were buying meat from her shop. WHR sent her on 7 days’ business training in India which enabled her to start other kinds of businesses. For example, her local Single Women’s Group gave her a loan of NRs 2,000 to open a cycle repair shop. Now in Chitwan women are doing jobs that traditionally were considered to be men’s work. At the beginning, local people used to discourage them by saying that women couldn’t start a cycle business. But time has changed and those people now come to their shop and encourage them to work more.