Letters from Renu and the WFN staff . . .

A diary of social work in Nepal . . . April 28, 2008

The Letters from Renu on these pages detail an ongoing saga of abuse. WARNING: these letters have graphic descriptions which may be disturbing. These are stories of real people in terrible trouble. The good news is that there are many individuals who are working to set the world right in Nepal. WFN is one of the groups seeing to it that something is being done to help.

Father uses daughter as cash to gamble . . . looses her . . . then arranges marriage to leper!!!!

Dear Brian

Thank you very much for your kind emial to us.  Here I am going to share with you a very painful reality of Nepal.  There are four new girls who have come to WFN shelter within the last two weeks, among them is Nauri. Nauri, 10, was gambled away by her own father!

 

In Nepal, women and girls are still considered the property of the male members of the family. The husband or the father is responsible to control the wife or daughter.

 

A man name Raiman Bohara won Nauri and brought her into his home. He arranged Nauri's marriage with a 30 year old man who was sick with leprosy.

 

When the Women’s Foundation learned about this child's situation, they took action with the coorination of and help of various human rights organizations, the District Child Welfare Center and the Women's Development Centre of Doti.  They took joint take action to  rescue Nauri.

 

Both the Nauri's father and the man who won the girl were arrested but were soon released.  We have no law's in Nepal to punish this behaviour. The District Administration Office is in charge and hac cancelled the marriage.

 

Nauri has no place to go. Her mother died when she was very little. Her father married another women. The family had a very difficult life.

 

After the rescue, the Nauri was taken to the WF shelter in Kathmandu.

 

Nauri is one girl but still many young girls become victims of this behaviour. Nauri told us that all her female relatives were married when they were 7 or 8 years old. Some communities easily accept such a practice and use of women and girls because they are seen as a man’s property. We have no laws to punish those abusers.

 

Now Nauri would like to go to school. She wants to study but she has big  traumas from the past.  She will take a long time to heal.