Nearly seven years ago, Devi (Name changed), had an arranged marriage when she was 18 years old. As she described, she has a mother-in-law, one brother-in-law and his wife, two sisters-in-law along with her husband in the home. She got a daughter within a year. After giving birth to a daughter, her in-laws started torturing her mentally, telling her that she has given birth to a daughter. She was suffered from a skin problem since her marriage and her in-laws started telling her that she has leprosy (Kustha Rog) and they forced her to stay in a separate house.
Through all this, her husband also supported his family members. In addition, after separating her from his house; her husband went to India for work. After he went to India, her husband never called her and did not send any money for her survival. In the absence of her husband, her in-laws started to demand she divorce him but she denied it. Then she started crushing stones for her survival. After two years, her husband returned from India and started to live with her.
After living together with her husband, she again became pregnant and gave birth to a second daughter. Her husband again went back to India. After giving birth to a second daughter, her husband started demanding a divorce through the phone from India but she refused.
After some time, she sent her elder daughter to the maternal home and kept her younger daughter with herself. Her husband again came back from India and he tried to kill her by throwing her down a hill but she was saved luckily by catching bushes and with the help of other people walking on the road. Her husband tried to kill her but she did not complain anywhere.
After this incident, her husband started physically torturing her and when the physical torture became unbearable, she filed a case against him on the grounds of domestic violence and for Mana Chamal (support for survival). When her husband came to know about her complaint, then he again went to India. After some time, she reached a safe home in Bajhang after which she was referred to Casa Nepal shelter on the 4th of March 2018 for longer-term support as she needed to become economically independent. When she came to Casa Nepal, she was hopeless and had very low self-esteem. She had the plan to take sewing training and return home. After assessment and counselling, however, she changed her plan and was interested in taking security guard training. When she was in the shelter, she had difficulty sleeping and was constantly anxious about her daughter’s future. But she dares to do something so that she can show the people who have hated and tortured her.
After coming into the shelter, she was medically examined and it was found that she didn’t have a severe skin problem as she was previously said to have leprosy (Kustha Rog). Upon proper treatment, her skin disease was cured. After that, she was sent for a one-week security guard training and after the training completion, she got a job at Rhino Security Company. She currently works at Carpet Factory. At present, she is getting Rs. 14,500/- per month as a salary. After joining the workforce, she stayed at Casa Nepal for nearly 3 months to save some money. She has now rented a room near her job and is living independently. Now she is very confident and economically independent, so she wants to stay in Kathmandu with her new job. She is happily living her life.
