Story 11: Violence Free Maya
Surkhet District Panchapuri Municipality Ward No. 9, a member of the Laligurans women’s group living in Lower Biju, Maya Thapa was born in Choukunai village. Many years ago, Maya had a child marriage with Deepak Thapa at the age of 13 due to the fact that there were many daughters in her family. Currently, there are 5 people in the family including 1 daughter, 2 sons and husband and wife.
Because Maya was married at a young age (13 years old), she could not do all the housework, due to which she was subjected to violence from her family. She was separated from the family because she was unable to work at home. After that, her husband also started drinking alcohol and quarreling at home and beating her. She endured the violence of her husband, raised children, and started doing housework whether or not she could. She had been married for 20, 22 years, her son and daughter had grown up, but there was no change in her husband’s behavior. Her husband was giving her physical and mental torture by not helping her with housework, drinking alcohol all day and beating her at home at night, even throwing away the cooked food. She could not bear her husband’s behavior and tried to commit suicide, but she could not commit suicide thinking about her children. In the same way, in 2021, because of her husband torture she tried to commit suicide by jumping into Karnali river, They informed the family, after which her neighbors and sister-in-law Deurani brought her home.
In 2021, Awaaj Sanstha informed all the women of the community that they would form a women’s group in the community and gathered them. After explaining the purpose of forming the group, the women of the community formed the Laligurans Women’s Group and told Maya Thapa, was the most affected by violence. They decided to hold a meeting every month at Maya’s house. In the women’s group meeting, Maya Thapa told everyone about the violence against her. In this way, when the monthly meeting was held, the men of the community also came close to listen and her husband Deepak Thapa also started listening to the things discussed from Tada, started seeing the posters of sexual violence and domestic violence. Maya Thapa requested social administrator Kalpana Nepali to go to the family and discuss it, Kalpana went and discussed with the husband and wife. After that, Matha told Kalpana that there was a difference in her husband’s behavior.
The group also chose Maya in the matter of selecting women to earn income. She was trained to raise boiler chickens and after Paryoza helped him with Rs. 25,000, she cleaned the old shed by adding lights and bought feed and water for the chickens and raised 100 chicks and earned 25,000 profit from 100 chicks. She put 200 chicks again and made a profit of about 40,000. After that, she put 400 chicks and made a profit of about 65, 70,000. With the aim of earning profit from this business, husband and wife started raising chickens together, and the husband started cutting chickens. Currently, the husband has also stopped drinking and helps his wife at work. Both have done business together. Now, the husband has taken a loan from the microfinance institution and the husband has bought a motorcycle and is selling chickens far and wide. They have been saving something from the profit from the business, educating their children, running household expenses. Both of them thank the organization for showing us the way.