Jamila gets her daughter back
Jamila is a 24-year old married woman with two daughters. Her husband Bilal works as a cobbler in the city. She spent the first six months of marriage happily with her husband but that changed when her mother-in-law started threatening her with a divorce if she did not bear a male child within a year. She got pregnant soon after but when she asked her husband to take her for a medical check-up, he began to physically abuse her. The abuse became a regular practice when she gave birth to a daughter.
Her brother-in-law was an addict and also used to beat her whenever her husband refused to give him money for drugs. After the birth of her second daughter, they threw her out of the house without her daughters. . Family pressure forced her to go back to her husband to live a “respectable life. However, the situation got worse. Jamila became so frustrated that she tried to self-immolate with petrol but a neighbor saved her in time.
On 20th April 2009, Jamila was badly beaten by her in-laws again. A neighbor came to her rescue and called her mother. She was allowed to leave with her mother but her younger daughter Asma was kept back.
One day, Jamila found out about Bedari’s Crisis Intervention Centre in Chakwal from a neighbour. With Bedari’s help, she filed a case for her daughter’s custody which was resolved in her avour in a day. She says, “I had lost hope but am happy to get my daughter back with support from Bedari”. Jamila is planning on filing another case for maintenance money from her husband with Bedari’s help.
Muhammad Akram receives his due share of compensation money..
Muhammad Akram belongs to Village Buzdar, Union Council Datta, Tehsil & Distt, Mansehra. He was a patient of diabetes even before the earthquake struck in October 2005. He received a serious injury to his left leg. It worsened with the passage of time, and finally the doctors decided to amputate his lleg to save the rest of his body from damage.
His house had developed cracks due to the earthquake. It was unsafe to live in that house with three small children, but he had no other option. During damage assessment survey, he was promised a sum of Rs 25,000 for the repair of his house but the promise did not become a reality even after one year. With one artificial leg, he ran from pillar to post to get the promised amount but to no avail.
Finally he submitted his complaint to Bedari. His complaint was taken up with the Chairman of ERRA within a week. After a fortnight, the complainant informed Bedari staff that his problem had been resolve; he had received the due amount.
A little girl makes a big difference
“I’m so glad to be the one who brought change in lives of these out of school young girls”, says Noreen proudly while sharing her success.
Noreen was focal person for the youth group working in a small village – Maira Khurd in District Muzaffarabad of AJK. In Maira Khurd, there were 13 young girls of ages between 7 and 15 years who either had never been to school at all, or left before completing primary education. She started visiting their homes to talk to their parents about this issue. When asked why she chose to do that, she replied, “I felt if these girls go to school today, they will be able to talk about their rights tomorrow”.
Parents gave different excuses for not sending their daughters to school i.e. looking after young siblings, supporting mothers in work and having no money to send their daughters to school. She was surprised “to see that most of these parents have sons who are going to school but for daughters they say they do not have money.”
She had to do a lot of work to get these girls into schools. She talked to their parents on their own. Then she organized their meeting with the Program Office of Bedari. Later she organized a meeting between school teachers and the parents of the out-of-school girls. She organized another meeting between the parents of school going girls and parents of out-of-school girls. After a six-month long vigorous campaign, all the 13 girls were admitted to the village school.
Bedari feels proud for training her on social mobilization and gender sensitization. In addition to the training she got from Bedari, it is her internal commitment to the cause of women’s rights that motivated her to work a step forward. She says “I want to continue my efforts for women’s rights and for that I need to have more knowledge and ability to prove myself. Therefore I will continue my education and will keep on working with parents who do not send their daughters to school.”
