Mothers are in dilemma whether to protect their husband who raped their daughter or to fight against him for the sake of the daughter
Stories of 20 girl survivors of rape
Laxmi Basnet: Centre for Investigative Journalism-Nepal
In August 2014, a young girl of Panauti, Kavre, wrote in a “suicide note”: “I considered it better to die than be the wife of my grandfather and father”.
The heart-rending story that caused her to pursue death began when she was 10. She was raped by her own 65-year-old grandfather. Her ordeal went on for nearly six months, until her father arrived from abroad. When she told him about the series of abuses, he dismissed it questioning if an old man like him could do that.
Her father had four wives. She was the oldest daughter from the second wife. When she became 13, her father raped her too. She informed her mother about it but she did not take it seriously. Her maternal uncle was a police inspector. To his niece’s complaint, he said conclusively, “Discussing this matter causes disgrace. We’ll talk to him rather.” This assurance did not put an end to her nightmare. Her father continued to rape her. He also gavee her contraceptive pills.
When nobody listened to her, she tried unsuccessfully to poison herself to death. After recovering a little after hospital care, she reached the Kavre Police Office to file complaints against her father and grandfather. The old man committed suicide right after the incident came to light. Refusing to fight for justice for her daughter, her mother said: “I must also care for my other children.”
The Kavre District Court jailed her father for 18 years. After the appellate court, the case reached the Supreme Court, which upheld the district court’s verdict. The father was sent behind bars but her mother disowned her. Sheltered by a non-government organization in Kathmandu, the child laments: “I have nobody of my own; no place to go to.”
Ten years ago, just the day after Dasain, the biggest festival celebrated in Nepal,an eleven-year-old girl of Kuwari, Nuwakot, followed her relatives to join her sister in Kathmandu. Having lost her parents early in her life, she grew up with her sister and her maternal home. She grew up in the company of her sister’s brother-in-law, his brothers and her maternal cousin.
Saying that they would not make it to Kathmandu on the day, the men planned to spend the night in Trishuli. All of them stayed in a single room. The men got drunk and gang-raped her.
In Kathmandu, she told her sister about her incident. Her sister went to police to find justice for her sister. In a complaint filed with the Nuwakot district police office, the victim claimed that all five had raped her. Her brother-in-law came forward to confess to the crime but said he had raped her solely, trying to save his younger brothers. The court slapped three-year jail terms on three of them as rape convicts. They have already served their jail terms while her maternal cousin has been absconding since the incident.
In this incident, a woman fought to bring justice for her younger sister. After the Nuwakot District Court sentenced her husband to 15 years in jail, she divorced him. Taking a share of her husband’s property, she divided it between her two sons and her victimized sister. After leaving her sons at a hostel, she has gone abroad for employment.
Currently studying at the bachelor level, the girl is taking shelter at a non-government organization. She still has the problem of urinary incontinence. Since her urine leaks while coughing and even laughing, she wears diaper while going out. Worried at her sister’s broken marriage, she says: “I don’t have anywhere to go now.”
An adolescent girl of Godavari, Lalitpur, had an inter-caste marriage. Even if her parents did not endorse this union, she had a loving husband so the married life was going on well. After giving birth to a daughter, she felt the void of her parents had been filled.
However, her happiness was limited by an incident she witnessed a day after the 2015 earthquake. Under their tent, she saw her husband sexually assaulting her nine-year-old daughter. Controlling herself, she reported the crime to the police. The Lalitpur District Court sentenced her husband to 10 years in jail. She said at the court: “I don’t need such husband. I wish to see this criminal imprisoned for life.”
Having been thrown out of a happy family, she is now staying with her relatives. She lives on wages earned from odd jobs. In her first teenage year, the raped girl is studying under the care of a non-government organization. “I’ve realized that it takes no time for one’s dreams to shatter,” she shared.
She never brought the incident out even when she was often raped by her father. When she reached the ninth grade, her father brought her to Dolakha along with her younger brother. He kept them in a rented room saying that they could go to a good school there.
Her father continued to rape her in Dolakha too.. When it was unbearable to her, she reported the case to her mother. While the mother took up the matter with the man, he scolded her instead. The series of rapes continued. Fearing that bringing the incident to the public might disturb her study, the victim made up her mind to keep quiet until her school-end annual SLC examination. Four days after her exams were over five years ago, she went to meet an acquainted female official at the District Administration Office and opened herself to her. After the official had informed the chief district officer and the police, her father was arrested. The Dolakha District Court issued its judgment, sentencing the man to 12 years in jail and fining him Rs 100,000.
She stayed home for the four-five days after the arrest of her father. But when her mother started pressing her to free him by changing her statement, she left home. She recently completed her grade 12 study under the protection of a non-government organization. “My mother has told me not to return while my father has warned me of consequences saying that he would appeal the court’s ruling,” she shared, requesting the government to provide her with security and job.
One 17 year old girl of Parbat village was raped by her own uncle when she was 13. She did not share her ordeal then. When she started complaining of stomach ache often, her mother took her to hospital one day. It was found out that she was pregnant. Her mother fainted at this revelation. Her father was suffering from paralysis.
The time for safe abortion had already passed. When the news spread across the village, people even talked about banishing her. She then got in contact of a non-government organization with the help of police. She was kept there for some time given some “counseling”, then sent back home.
After they found that she had returned home after a few days, some women thrashed her saying that “such a girl must not be kept in the village”. When they were about to cast her out at night, a local teacher took her to the organization again. She delivered her baby there. The court has ordered 10-year imprisonment for the rapist. “Where shall I go leaving this shelter?” the teenage mother wonders.
The childless couple of Laxmi of Dhading and her husband adopted a one month old baby girl seven years ago. The infant brought happiness to Laxmi’s small family. Five years later, Laxmi went to her parents’ home leaving the five-year-old back for the mother’s day celebration. On May 6, 2016, her husband raped the baby.
When she came back on May 13, neighbors told her about the incident. When the little girl confirmed that her father had raped her, the woman filed a complaint at the Dhading District Police Office. But when she had filed the case, the neighbors who had told her that they had seen the man rape the baby said the woman had conspired against her husband. “Those who said they had seen him rape later said they had no idea about it. They stopped sharing work with me. Instead, they charged me with theft.”
Next, Laxmi filed a complaint against seven neighbours who had mistreated her. At a discussion held at the police office, some accused her of ruining the village, threatening her with death if she continued to do that. Police sent them back after an agreement. When the issue got too big for her to handle, she left the village. She’s currently living in Bhaktapur with her daughter.
The Dhading District Court ordered three months later 11-year jail for the convicted father. Her daughter is now seven years old. “The guilty has been punished but I’ve no environment to go back to my village.”
Two years ago, a 14-year-old girl of Manebhanjyang, Okhaldhunga, worked at a hotel operated by her relatives. Her stomach started to bulge. Her family was poor and her mother ignorant. When others advised her to take the daughter to hospital, they visited one. The girl was found to be seven months pregnant.
According to her, driver Kaji Rai, who worked for the hotel, had raped her. She stayed quiet since he had threatened her with death if she told anybody about it.
She was then kept at the “safe house” in the district. Since she found it difficult to face the public after delivering the baby, some organizations have arranged for the two to live in Kathmandu with her parents’ permission.
A complaint has been filed against Kaji at the Okhaldhunga District Police Office. The 16-year-old is living with her two-year-old son. She’s been a stranger to her own house and village. “I don’t dare go home with a child born from rape. Where else should I go?” she wonders.
This story is from Chitwan. A few months after her birth, her mother eloped with another man. Her father was a contractor; he would often change his wives too. Some would stay for two to four months, others would leave after a week or so. One lived with him for pretty long and gave birth to a daughter but left her before the infant was one-year-old. This victim grew under her care.
As a teenager, she and her younger sister slept in the same room. One day she complained to her father that the door latch had broken. Rather than repairing it, in an unimaginable incident, her father and her brother took turns to rape her the same night. She said she had just gone to sleep after study that night.
As they went out, the men locked her from outside. She cried and yelled but nobody came to her rescue. Deeper into the night, she tugged hard at the door. Luckily, the door opened. Leaving her sister back, she rushed through the jungle to her maternal home and narrated her nightmare to her uncle and aunt. The couple took her back to her house the next day. The neighbors were invited. Her father and brother bowed to her and apologized saying that they had committed the crime under the influence of alcohol.
Back in her maternal home, she was married to a man nearly twice her age. Unable to live with the man, she left him to work at a dance bar. Currently she sells goods to bus passengers in the Kalanki area in Kathmandu. “I tried unsuccessfully twice to kill myself,” the 18-year-old said. “Living is hard; dying is not easy either.”
A girl from Baglung had both parents with mental illness who were unable to take care of themselves. This put on her shoulders the responsibility of looking after her parents and her younger brother and sister. At the age of eightshe was taken to her aunt’s house with the assurance of education.
There she started going to school. One day when her aunt was away, her uncle raped her. When others learnt about it, the man was arrested. The child was then sheltered at a “safe house” managed by a non-government organization. After a year, she was taken back to her parents who were mentally challenged and could not care for her. After her relatives and neighbours suggested that it was not good to keep her at her family, she reached the “safe house” again. “My parents can’t do anything. After her husband went to jai, my aunt refused to keep me at her home. Where shall I go?” she laments.
This incident happened in Kathmandu last year. Preparations were being made to celebrate her eighth birthday. The mother who always received her when she arrived from school was delayed as she had gone to Bhaktapur that day. She called up her brother-in-law next door to receive her.
But her daughter was not home when she reached home at 6pm. When she searched the man’s house, she found her lying unconscious in toilet. Neighbours gathered. At hospital, they knew that she had been raped. With the commotion, the relative had fled the house. He was caught in Jhapa after a month. The court has sentenced him to eight years in prison.
The woman reported to police after the saffron-robed 54-year-old had raped her girl child. But her husband supported his brother. After the court case, the couple broke up. Now she lives in a rented space.
Her daughter is sheltered by a non-government organization. She gets alarmed when she encounters a man. The family has broken apart. “The case is now at an appeallate court. The brothers have vowed to turn over the case. I don’t know what to do if the man is freed,” she expresses her fears.
A man from Sinduli married a pregnant woman past her teens who had lost her husband, on condition of fathering her baby. He kept his promise after she gave birth to a baby girl. The man helped her by feeding and bathing the baby as the woman was busy with farm and field works outside.
The girl was five years old. One day, the mother sensed that the baby’s body gave off a foul smell. While she could not figure it out initially, she took her to hospital when the child gradually lost her appetite and started crying as if from stomach ache. Doctors said she had been raped repeatedly; her uterus had got wounded as a result. The crime had been committed by her step-father.
Since her treatment was not possible in the district, she was taken to Kathmandu. The mother left her in the care of a non-government organization. The girl has been at the shelter for nine years. Her mother is a wage worker in the village.
Sentenced by the Sindhuli District Court for 10 years, the man is about to be released from prison but the wounds of the mother and the child have yet to be healed. The daughter is in a pitiable condition: she has menstruation once in three-four months. She bleeds for 15 to 20 days at a cycle. Since her uterus has yet to heal, doctors have advised removal of the organ.
After her father left for India by marring another woman and their mother too deserted them, an eleven-year-old of Birendranagar, Surkhet, became the guardian for her brother and sister. She provided for her siblings and herself by begging with her relatives and often selling fodder and firewood. She had managed to continue going to school somehow. She studied in Grade 9; her sister in Grade 5 and her brother in Grade 2.
Five months ago one late evening, she was returning from the house of one distant relative quite far away. As she was passing a forest, two boys blocked her way and took turns to rape her. She reached home at 10pm with great difficulty.
Finding out about it, an aunt she knew took her to the police post. She was then sent to the shelter run by a non-government organization. She still lives there but she has more worries about her siblings than herself. “They might be hungry,” she laments. Her rapists is yet to be brought to justice.
A seven year old girl from Birendranagar, Surkhet, lived with her maternal uncle. By leaving their three children at their maternal home, her father had left for India in search of work. As she grew up, her maternal uncle raped her repeatedly. When one of her aunts enquired about the peculiar behavior of the 16-year-old, she learnt that she had got pregnant.
The woman reported to police. The pregnancy of six months could not be aborted. Police sent her to a shelter run by a Non-Government Organization (NGO). The girl doesn’t talk to anyone. Residence manager Dhana GC said: “She is under deep shock. She often talks in semi-consciousness.” The rape-accused has been absconding.
A girl of Gurbhakot, Surkhet was married at the age of 14. Even though it was child marriage, her marital life had been going on well. One day, after her son was born, her husband hit her. She took leave to go to her maternal home for a few days. One night while sleeping at her maternal home, Shambhu Gharti of the village raped her.
Fearing social stigma, her parents wanted to settle the incident in the village. But while Shambhu’s family threatened them, they reported to police. Shambhu was then arrested. When her husband came to know about it, their marriage broke up. “I chose divorce after realizing that I can’t live at that home any longer,” she said. “But I’ve not taken any property.”
Shambhu has been in Surkhet jail for three months. His family is trying to free him. The young woman caring for her four-year-old son is further troubled by the behavior of her relatives and society. “My siblings charge that I brought infamy to them,” she lamented. “When I’m hated in my parents’ home, where shall I go?”
This incident is from Malika Rural Municipality in Myagdi. One Saturday three months ago, a mother had gone to work leaving her 12-year-old daughter at home with her 53-year-old husband. The man raped her while his wife was away. According to the girl, her father had raped her earlier too.
After learning about it, the woman informed ward Chairman Pipala Budha about it right away. On his suggestion, the mother-daughter filed a complaint at the Area Police Office Darwang.
Police caught the man immediately. He remains in custody. But his relatives are still unhappy with Chairman Budha for referring the case to police without settling the incident among themselves. While the case is sub judice in District Court, Myagdi, the girl is studying in the village.
Source: Women and Children Service Directorate, Nepal Police Headquarters
In an incident from Gaindakot, Nawalparasi, a father raped his eight-month-old daughter last year. The baby’s mother has reported to the police that the man nearly 30-years-old committed the crime while she was away at work. She had gone to a hotel to work, leaving the infant in his care. When neighbors informed that her baby had been crying hoarse, she went back home and caught him red-handed.
The Area Police Office, Gaindakot arrested the man right after the complaint was filed. An organization has been providing legal aid in the case claiming punishment for the man on the charge of raping the infant as a blood relative. The Nawalparasi district court has sent him to custody. According to a legal practitioner pleading the case, the poor woman finds it hard to fight the case as she has to take care of the victim and her other babies.
The evening of April 11, 2018. A 16-year-old girl from a poor family in Janakpurdham sub-metropolitan city was returning home after work at a house. Two men caught hold of her on the way and took her to a house where seven men raped her whole night.
According to her, the rapists left her near her house before dawn. Nobody questioned her as she would sometimes stay at the house where she worked. The rapists had warned her not to complain to anyone, or else they would finish off the whole family. When she told a distant sister of hers about it after two days, the woman’s grandmother said she should go to police. A complaint was filed at the Dhanusha District Police Office four days after the incident.
Among the seven accused, Suman Pande, Dhanik Lal Sah and Ojir Hussain alias Rahul are behind bars while Ranjit Kumar Sah of Mahottari and Siddhartha Das of Dhanusha are absconding. Two others were unknown to the victim and the police have failed to identify them too. The girl currently taking shelter at an organization in Kathmandu finds it hard to go back home. Her family also wants her to study in the Capital as they fear that she may be attacked anytime if she visits her village. Perpetrators Pande, Sah and Hussain have appealed to the Janakpur Appellate Court for freedom.
A girl of Gujara Municipality in Rautahat disappeared all of a sudden in the first month of the Nepali calendar last year. Police were informed about it immediately but she could not be traced for two months. After she reappeared then, the mastermind behind her abduction, local drug seller Balistar Chaudhary, was arrested. He had held her captive by renting a room in Birgunj.
According to Area Police Office Garuda, the 13-year-old was raped by Balistar (35), Dharmendra Kumar Chaudhary (24) and Jaya Lal Mahato (19) repeatedly. Court proceedings are going on in Rautahat district against the three, who are in custody, on charges of abduction, holding captive and rape.
Since the girl’s parents are being warned repeatedly to take back the case, they are staying in Kathmandu. The family living on a small business faces unprecedented trouble. “My daughter’s life has been ruined; we’re in a poor state too,” said the victim’s father.
Six months ago, a 14-year-old girl was raped by her neighbor in Phidim, Panchthar. Her poor family had three siblings and their mother. Their father had abandoned them long ago. The neighbor had offered her a ride on his motorcycle before raping her in a forest.
The man was arrested within a few days. The Panchthar District Court has sentenced him to 10 years in jail. He has been issuing threats to her from jail that he would slaughter her like an animal once he was out. Neighbours have been helping out her family but the woman fears for the safety of her other daughters. The organization providing shelter to her is preparing to rehabilitate her but the teenager is too scared to go home. She had returned to the organization in Kathmandu immediately after going home during Dashain.
Source: Women and Children Service Directorate, Nepal Police Headquarters
Three years ago, a man lived with his granddaughter in a Syangja village. Her mother abandoned the girl when she was six, leaving her in the care of the 70-year-old. When the girl always complained of stomach-ache, her teacher inquired about it. When prodded lovingly, the girl spilled the beans. Health examination showed that the girl had been raped regularly for six months.
A complaint was filed against the old man at the Syangja District Police Office. He was arrested. After a year, the court sentenced him to 10 years in jail. The child has been sheltered at a “safe house” run by a non-government organization. The organization has its own problems. A representative of the organization says: “There’s no place and person we can leave the child with.”
Blaming the victim!
It’s not easy to rehabilitate the victims of rape in the family and society. The society holds the victim responsible and despises them. Menuka Thapa, chairperson of Raksha Nepal, an NGO supporting rape victims for the past 15 years, shares: “Most victims leave home. Those rehabilitated in society do not account for even 20 per cent.”
Rape victims are unable to overcome their grief. They have to recount their ordeal repeatedly to police, lawyer and the judge. Answering the harsh questions of rival lawyers makes them relive their nightmare.
Gita Neupane, who has been providing psychological counseling to child and adolescent rape victims for the last ten years, said rape victims have traces of the incident in one form or another even after counseling. Victim’s pain lessens only with the love of family, relatives and society. “However, most victims can’t find the support of their family and relatives,” she observed.
Dr Devi Gurung is a gynaecologist at the Thapathali-based Maternity Hospital in Kathmandu. She has examined more than a thousand victims of rape. According to her, white vaginal discharge, pain in the lower abdomen, urinary and uterine infection and urinary incontinence are the common problems. If the uterine infection is not treated on time, fallopian tube may be blocked and conceiving may be impossible, she added. This problem is more severe in young girls and victims of gang rape.
According to Thapa of Raksha Nepal, among the 70 rape victims sheltered there, nearly half of them have difficulties in becoming mother in future.
According to Binita Dahal, chairperson of Antardrishti Nepal, an NGO supporting girls raped by close relatives, the society blames the victim. In incest, confining the crime within family and not registering cases is common. “There is no case unless the mother of the rape victim is ready to renounce the family,” said Dahal. “Mothers are in dilemma whether to protect their husband who raped the daughter or to fight against him for the sake of the daughter.”
According to Dahal, such incidents are suppressed within the family or society as far as possible. “If there is a court case, the verdict is delayed. If there is one and punishment slapped, the convict lands in jail but the victim finds no peace in own family, society.”
(With Laxmi Bhandari in Surkhet.)
(While protecting the victim’s identity, in several cases the background of the incident and the identity of the perpetrators have been concealed. These cases were derived from the district police offices and cases sub judice in district, appellate and the supreme courts.)
