Story 14: A women’s group helped a single woman from being evicted and from domestic violence
Kalika Dash is 60 years old women who have been living in Panchapuri Municipality, 11 Maula, Surkhet. Her husband passed away in a road accident in India nearly 30 years ago. While she lost her husband her younger son was 3 months in her womb. She had to face lots of challenges after death of her husband. She faced lots of discriminations and had to struggle every day and every situation in her life, even though she managed to bring up 3 children. Now, her 3 sons are already married and all her son and daughter in laws are staying in India. Now she is all on her own.
Near her house, there lived her brother-in-law, who always used to torture her, scold her, and even accuse her of being a witch. When his children got sick he used to blame her saying it was because of her witchcraft. He even used to say that your son is also not from my brother so you will not get any property. She asked for help from community people as she could not tolerate the accusation from her brother-in-law. They came and counseled him, the issue stopped for one to two days, but then it began to recur repeatedly. Her brother-in-law began pressuring her, saying that he is not afraid of anyone, he also used to say that he wouldn’t give her any share of the property to her as it belonged to his brother. After all these torture she went to Dovan mothers group in Panchapuri ward 11. She visited the house of Dikshya Sayal (Chairperson, Dovan mothers group) and expressed all the torture she was facing from her brother-in-law. After hearing all her problems Dikshya Sayal asked Ms. Dhirja Acharya (Secretary, Dovan mothers group) to write a petition to ward regarding the verbal torture her brother-in-law was giving her.
After receiving the petition, the ward chairperson said, “We have been advising him not to behave this way, but he doesn’t listen to us, so we can’t do much about it. You can go and file a case with the police.” Hearing this she went again with Ms. Dikshya, and started crying, saying, “I did not get justice, now I have no choice but to die, and no one will give justice to the poor.” Then Ms. Diksha wrote a petition to Police and suggested her to go to police station. She went to police station. Police said, “We already have lots of case against him, he is stubborn and he can’t change himself”. Kalika again went to Ms. Dikshya and Ms. Dikshya said, “You go to your house for now, if your brother-in-law again repeats the same just call us, we will come at your place” Ms. Dikshya handed her phone number to Kalika.
When Kalika arrived home, she found that her house was locked with a large key by her brother-in-law. She then asked one of her neighbors to call Ms. Dikshya and provided her phone number. They called Ms. Dikshya and explained the situation to her. Ms. Dikshya went to see her with other five women from mothers group. When Ms. Dikshya reached there Kalika’s brother-in-law scolded them all which Ms. Dikshya recorded in her phone and called police at the mean time. Police reached there and arrested Kalika’s brother-in-law. Ms. Dikshya requested police not to leave him for today and we will do the rest tomorrow.
Next day Kalika with other members of Mothers group went to Police office and explained everything. After all the discussions, brother-in-law said “I apologized to my sister-in-law and the women’s group, promising not to repeat my mistakes. In front of everyone, I hold my ears, vowing to change my behavior.” It’s been a month now, and he haven’t had alcohol. Even started saying his sister-in-law to cook for him too, visited her to eat, and now they have a good relationship.