A LIFE FULL OF AGONY
By Bishnu Chimeki

December 7, 2002 – (The Rising Nepal – Feature) JUNELI Khadka (name changed), who was raped by her landlord's son before she reached her puberty, was forced to choose the profession of commercial sex worker at a tender age. In order to sustain her life, Juneli who is hardly 14/15 years old has traveled from Birgunj to Krishnanagar to Pokhara to Kathmandu.

No Identity

After she escaped from her landlord's house in Kathmandu in 2002, she has been living at Narayangarh for the past three months with an elderly lady who is involved in the same profession. Juneli has no remembrance of her parents and she does not even know her real age. Juneli was born in Hetauda and her father died when she was three years old and her mother married another man one year after. She found this out later from someone else.

According to Juneli, she believed that she belonged to the house she was working in. But, she found it strange that evferyone else did not work and she was the only one to work and face abuse. She also wanted to sit back, play around and study without doing any work. Later she came to know through the person who had brought her there for work that she was only working at the place.

She has no idea how she is related to this man. He used to come from time to time to the place that she worked and tell her that he was his brother and father whatever she wanted to call him. According to him, he had found her crying in the streets and had brought her here out of pity. He used to bring biscuits and chocolates and would advise her to work well whenever he came. Later, Juneli came to find out through the landlord that the man used to come to collect her salary. One day the landlord told him that he would give the salary to Juneli herself and since then for the past two years he has not been seen. Juneli has no idea where the man disappeared. Juneli started suspecting the man who had shown affection for her since he stopped coming after he did not get her salary.

Although the landlord told the man that he would give the salary to Juneli herself, she did not get any money from her landlord. She had asked the landlady for a hundred rupees once but the landlady snapped back that she had to take care of Juneli's marriage and the salary would not even cover that.

When we tried to question her why she left the house forsaking her salary to join such a profession in the streets, she just cried. A dressed up Juneli had ventured out to the market in search of clients since early morning, but she had not had anything to eat till 12 noon. When we gave her thirty rupees to eat something, she started opening up but she was quite fearful that her landlady might find out about her whereabouts.

According to her, three years back both the landlord and the landlady had gone out to attend a marriage. They had one son and a daughter. The son used to attend college in the morning and the daughter used to go in the afternoon. One day the son asked her to bring water to his room after his sister had left. Then when she entered, he held her, locked the door and raped her. After it was done, he bathed her and gave her chocolates and warned her not to tell anyone. That same day the landlord's daughter called up to say that she was spending the night at a friend's place. The two of them were alone at home and the son again told her not to tell anyone and even helped her prepare the dinner. After that day, the son started showing much affection towards her and brought her many things to eat. Juneli started accepting whatever he asked for and he even told her that one day they would go to a temple and get married. After some time, the son had an accident and died. After this incident, Juneli did not like to stay there and one day while she was out with her landlady, she was able to escape.

She did not have a penny when she ran away. She only had some dresses belonging to the landlady. She hitchhiked on a truck to Birgunj because she wanted to get as far away as possible and in Birgunj the truck driver again raped her. She was helpless because she had nothing with her. The next day she got off at Narayangarh in the same truck. The driver gave her hundred rupees and she felt real thrilled and forgot her pain momentarily.

She got off the truck but she had no idea why she got off because Naryangarh was a new place for her. She was standing on the street without any aim when a truck came by and the driver asked her if she wanted to go. She thought it was the same truck and she got in after which she reached Pokhara. She met one lady in Pokhara and both of them came to Narayangarh and started living together.

Although Juneli felt at peace right after leaving the landlord's home, she is now finding her new life painful and torturous. But she has nowhere to go. She does not want to return back to the old house and she seems more frightened of the landlord's family finding her than of the society Juneli has been able to feed herself through the profession but she has not been able to save anything for her future. She usually does not get the total amount that is bargained. She charges from rupees fifty upto rupees thousand but upto now she has not received more than rupees five hundred.
Some of the clients do not give any money.

Suffer

How long will Juneli, who never had the love of her parents or of anyone else and who was cheated by someone she trusted, suffer in the long run? She wants to satisfy her childhood whims but she does not have the means or the resources. Yesterday, she was a prisoner of a family and today she is a prisoner of the society. It is yet to be seen how the society, which did not care about her past, will look into her future.

From: http://www.mahilaweb.org/footer/news/dec_02/rising_nepal.htm