Help women victims of Domestic Violence in India

Some more stories from our SOS counsellor:

SS Domestic Abuse

SS called and wanted to talk about her sister S. She has been married for 2 years and lives with her husband separately from her in-laws. A few months after her marriage her husband started harassing her. SS said he brought his sister to his house after one month and S went back to her husband and he apologised. After that her husband continued to harass her in the same way. Now SS says that S’s husband has said if SS comes to pick up her sister again, she must sign divorce papers.

S asked Sambhali advice what to do. The Sambhali counsellor advised S that he shoud write a complaint to the police so that if there was any kind of aggression when SS went to pick up his sister, that S would be safe in case of a fight. If S’s husband beat someone up then the police could take action against him.  

D Domestic Abuse/Harassment

MD came to Sambhali with her son. She was very worried about her daughter P, who was an ex-student of Sambhali. M said that her daughter had been married for 17 years and has 2 sons. Her husband has an illicit relationship with another woman after 4 years of marriage. He disappeared from home for 2 years and then returned with the woman and their child. At that point, he ended the relationship with P and started living separately with his new family. Now he is harassing P for the last year to get out of the house.  P’s mother was very upset about his and came to Sambhali for advice.

Sambhali’s counsellor felt that P needed legal advice and referred her to a local advocate in Jodhpur, who had done some voluntary work with Sambhali already, by giving a workshop to the women in empowerment centres. After hearing this case, the advocate, asked P to file the case in court and asked P to make a statement infront of the Magistrate. He said he would fight P’s case without asking for any fees.

OD and MD – Medical

OD lives in Setrawa, a rural village in the Thar desert area of Rajasthan, 100km west of Jodhpur and has been suffering from an illness for the last 3 months. She had taken medicine from the doctors in the village, but her health had not recovered. Gradually her weakness increased and she started to feel very dizzy.  She has 3 children and her husband also not well and so is unable to earn much money. Because of this, she could not come to Jodhpur and take medicine from a good doctor so she sought financial help from Sambhali to get some good medicine.

Sambhali invited her to come to Jodhpur to the Raj Dadiji Hospital where they carried out investigations. Her blood tests showed that she was anaemic and they gave her some medicine. Now she is feeling much better again.

Another lady in Setrawa called MD had very similar medical issues and was also invited to the hospital to have blood tests and provided with medicine for her anaemia.

K. Domestic Abuse

K came to the Sambhali office as she was feeling very distraught. She said she had been married for 10 years, but she is not happy. Her husband kept torturing her all the time because she has not had any children yet. She also got medical treatment but in vain. Someone advised her to do some religious rituals and remedies to be able to help her conceive. In order to do this she needed to take a loan with her husband’s permission and started doing these rituals.  She took a loan of 70,000rs but it soon increased to 1 Lakh rupees because of compound interest. When her husband got to know about this, there was a lot of fighting and he beat her. Her husband threatened her that if this money wasn’t paid by her parents, then he would divorce her. He fought her and removed her from his house and sent her to Jodhpur (to her parents) and said he would not take her back until her parents had paid the money. K doesn’t want to divorce her husband.

Sambhali’s counsellor relaxed her through counselling and provided moral support, saying that she is very well educated and she earns an income. K was referred to the advocate for legal advice and she felt much better talking to him.

JD Domestic Abuse

JD came to the Sambhali office after a recommendation from an acquaintance. She is about 70 years old and has 2 sons and 3 daughters. All 3 daughters are married; one son is married and one son is mentally weak. She lives in a house with both sons (and son’s family) , that was built by her husband. Her daughter-in-law fights with JD and causes JD’s son to have a rift with his mother and fight with her also.  One day he beat his mother and expelled her from the house and said that he would not let her stay there or call the house in her name.

Sambhali asked the advocate for legal advice, who asked JD to file an application and put it to the commissioner’s office so the police can take action against her eldest son.

• SOS calls and cases (DOCX)