Letters from Renu and the WFN staff . . .

A diary of social work in Nepal . . . December 28, 2006

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.

Child abuse throughout the family - stopped in its tracks!

Dear Brian, Yesterday, on the 26th of December, a little  boy dripping with blood was running on the road.   An eighteen years old women found him  and asked what had happened to him. He only said, Save me, sister, save me!" He was trembling.  She and her sister took him to the home of Kamala Upreti ( the Secretary General of the Women’s Foundation)’ which was nearby. When they brought him to the house, he become unconscious. Kamala held him in her lap and telephoned the office. I ran to her house. He was trembling. He was saying, My mother tried to killed me," several times. "I never saw my father. My mother hit me with a big iron stick several times. She threw me on the ground, today, Yesterday she grabbed my neck, I was nearly dead." He was bleeding so I and one volunteer of WF, Vogendra,  brought him to Bir Hospital. Doctors checked him and took several x-rays.. They found his head was broken. There were several wounds. They held him for 12 hours in observation and then just sent him out from the hospital. He need to get a checkup in OPD today.

The boy was expressing his fear telling” Sister my mother is very strong, she can grab me form you and kill you, believe me she almost killed me." He was showing us the bruse and telling that this is a cut by a knife and this is caused by an iron .“

After that we tried to find out about the women. Why did that women do this to her own son?  She did not want to talk much with us. When our people talked with her she was very rude and said that she can killed her son - It is of no matter to others. Finally she said a little about herself. She married the father of that boy 8 years ago. Two years later the boy was born. When the boy was one year old, the women married other man but she took the little boy with her.  He was not wanted by her. Afterteh son, she also she had two girls - both girls from two different men. One girl is in the village, She did not tell us where she was living. The other little girl, one and half years old, was with her. She was also badly injured. 

We are bringing that case to the police office but we do not have any laws to protect the child.  We are  trying very hard to get laws made to protect children.

Renu Sharma
On behalf of the Women’s Foundiaotn

NOTE: Bir Hospital is the oldest and busiest hospital in Nepal. It was established in July 1889 by Bir Samsher Janga Bahadur Rana. It is located at the center of Kathmandu city. The hospital is run by the National Academy of Medical Sciences, a government agency.

The hospital provides high quality medical and surgical treatments to people from all across the country. Many patients from the rural areas come to this hospital to get free treatment. It current has a capacity of 458 beds. Some of the county's top doctors work in this hospital.