FROM SHED TO BED.

Sheran Khan

Male dominant society, where we live in, has been the major cause for the rising domestic violence. We all know that male chromosomes are responsible for the distinction in the sex of the offspring we have. Despite this fact, most the Nepalese women are prosecuted for the reason that they gave birth to yet another baby girl. The scene is not any different in any of the underdeveloped countries and Nepal is not an exception. Pertaining to the same, Amarawati Bhar can be taken as a perfect example.

Amarawati Bhar, born in Mudai, India, was married to Ghanshyam Bhar, Shipawa-2 VDC, Nepal. Mr. Bhar is 35 years old. She was happily married until she started giving birth to baby girls. One baby girl after another and with the god’s grandeur she has 3 daughters now. (In the picture, you can see Amarawati Bhar.) Her eldest daughter is 12 and the youngest is 2 years old. They are a family of 5, with 3 kids and the uneducated couple. Her in-laws live with the elder brother of Ghanshyam. Amarawati Bhar had been accused of having given birth to baby girls. She was prosecuted for a long time in connection to a felony (according her husband); she had no role to play in. She was beaten day-in and day-out. Domestic violence was on the peak and the villagers were least bothered to help and the wounded wife was kept at home only.

One day Pushpa Srivastav, Chairperson of Shipawa’s Child Marriage Eradication Committee, came to know about it through Amarawati’s daughters and she charged raging to the Bhar’s to know the detail. She went there with the peer educators and the social mobiliser to learn that the curve we call ‘Smile’ had abandoned its occurrence on the face of Amarawati. And to make it worse, she was found lying unconscious on the floor. She was rushed to the medical centre nearby and the case was registered in the Ilaka Police Station, Lumbini. Knowing this registration truth, Mr. Bhar escaped to India and stayed there for over a couple of weeks. At the mean time, Amarawati was taken care-of by Pushpa Srivastav and the villagers. The heat of the registered case had somehow fallen when Mr. Bhar returned back home.

Dirty streets and homelessness are no advertisement for a prosperous society but Pushpa Srivastav (In the picture, right), a Brahmin, has been working for the Dalits with any pain to spare. Thus, she has been receiving an avalanche of hands asking for help and to boost her up she has been receiving encouraging responses from the society and she has been a gem for the CHUNAUTI project, Care-Nepal.

Personnel from Care-UK also visited the Bhar’s and they had to go to a shed to meet Amarawati. Once registered case at the police station and the foreigner’s arrival to meet Amarawati were integrating factors to change the behaviour of Mr. Bhar and Pushpa Srivastav played a vital role in helping Amarawati regain her rights. Today Amarawati Bhar has been taking sound sleep in her bedroom and there are only cows and fodders in the Shed.