Rokhaya’s Story

Dec 01, 2018

I was the eldest of six siblings. My father was a rickshaw-puller, my mother a domestic help. Money was scarce, but my parents encouraged us to study and my mother would collect old books for us from her places of work.

When I was 15 a local tailor started pressurizing me to marry him. Wherever I went he was there: declaring his love one instant, threatening me the next. His constant stalking made me edgy and nervous. My grades went down and eventually I dropped out. At that point my parents too began to support his suit. Especially since he fooled them into believing he was well off. I was made to sign a paper one day – little did I know that I was signing a marriage certificate. Without my realizing it, I was married.

The nightmare began from day one. We lived in a tiny shack with his mother (the large house he had had shown my parents when wooing me turned out to be just another myth). I was a slave to my mother-in-law. My husband was insanely jealous, suspecting me of infidelity with any male in the vicinity. Soon he was translating his suspicions into violence: beating me up at the slightest opportunity. I returned to my parents’ but he persuaded me to go back with promises. I got pregnant but when the time for delivery approached my husband was not bothered. It was my mother who took me to hospital and I gave birth to a daughter. This only angered him further and he refused to even visit us.

After a fortnight he came to see me at my mother’s and, despite my frail condition, raped me over and over and over again. This done, he disappeared. He reappeared 3-4 months later and demanded his daughter; so we moved back with him. This pattern continued for a while. I would go back in the desperate hope that he would reform and we could have a normal family life; and then he would start beating and raping me and I would return to my parents.

At this point I started a small business of machine knitting woolen garments because I could no longer rely on my husband to feed our daughter. He was a violent unpredictable presence in our life who came and went, his visits punctuated by the most terrible violence inflicted on me. Gradually he lost all control: attempting to abduct my daughter; beating up my brother; lacerating my mother’s arms.

Right till the end I tried to make it work. Even when he filed false charges against me with the police, accusing me of prostitution, I pleaded with the police to call him in so that we could settle the matter. But nothing happened.

In the meanwhile, I had come to learn about Swayam. I visited them wanting work – any work. With their support I enrolled in a nursing course. They helped me with my daughter’s education and I lived at my mother’s. Now I’m qualified and have a proper job. I pay my rent and for my daughter’s schooling.

At Swayam I get to speak with other women; we talk about our concerns, our futures. This gives us strength; we are proud to be independent but we know that we are not alone. I am part of Swayam’s Theatre Group. Through our performances we try to tell society about the things affecting women – most especially about violence. I am no longer scared about myself but, knowing intimately what can be inflicted on women, I worry about my daughter. Men – society as a whole – have to realize what women suffer and change the way they treat us.