Support Abused Women in India

by Seva Mandir

Project Report | Jan 27, 2020
Together We Can!

By Atul Lekhra | Programme Incharge

Dear Friend,

With your precious support last year we provided support to 109 women and 2 men through shelter and counselling. Shelter was provided to 94 women along with their 75 children. Thank you so much for all your help and support.

Rashmi (name changed) is from a rural area close to Udaipur city in southern Rajasthan. In 2003 she got married and after some time two beautiful children enriched and completed her family. Around eight years after marriage, problems started, as her husband started drinking and beating her regularly. Rashmi endured domestic assault for several months.

In 2013 Rashmi arrived for the first time at Seva Mandir's Short Stay Home. Since then, she has resided in there three times, during which she was given full assistance, she was counselled and joint meetings with her husband were held to help the couple to get over the difficulties. The husband tried to take her back for several times, but his promises of not beating her and not drinking anymore failed as the violence took place again.

She came back for the fourth time in 2015, and she has been living there for almost a year. During her last staying she had also found a job in a nearby Mall. Rashmi has been supported and counselled, legally adviced and guided, in order to help her making the best decision and start a new life. Many efforts have been taken to deal with the plight and Seva Mandir helped her during her staying to find a job and to become financially and emotionally independent.

This is just one of the stories of cruelty and abuse affecting women living at the Short Stay Home. Many of them have happily gone back home, re-establishing old bonds with their husbands. However, as Rashmi's case shows, the reality is more often difficult to face, especially when violence becomes endemic and it's fuelled by social diseases such as alcoholism.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support.

With warm wishes,

Atul Lekhra and the Seva Mandir Team

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Oct 21, 2019
Shelter Home: Reuniting Families...

By Atul Lekhra | Manager- Resource Mobilization

Dear Friend,

Meena (name changed) could find her family back after 3 long months of being separated from them.

The story goes back to 2018 when a woman with a young girl was found by paralegal volunteers (from District Legal Services Authority) in very poor conditions. They brought her to our shelter home to provide her safety. Upon investigation, it was found that she was mentally unstable and facing depression for a long time. She could not offer much of her whereabouts but from her language we understood that she hailed from Uttar Pradesh state. Our shelter home further investigated more and contacted Uttar Pradesh police station to enquire about her. Police found her family and asked her husband Mahesh (name changed) to go for verification to the Seva Mandir shelter home. Meanwhile, Meena continued to stay at the shelter home with her daughter.

Mahesh came to Seva Mandir shelter home and briefed about the history of his family. He said that 4 years back they lost a 3-month-old baby boy. Meena was in depression since then and 3 months back she left home with her 3-year-old daughter. Mahesh and his family tried very hard to find her but could not trace her. They even filed a lost report in the police station but came empty-handed. Slowly they lost all hopes of finding her.

When he received information about Meena being alive and safe, he could not believe it at first. He is not sure how she reached so far from home. He cried tears of joy when he saw his wife and daughter and the daughter was more than just happy on seeing her father after so long. The family left happily for their native and Mahesh was given counseling on how to take care of Meena’s depression.

Shelter Home is not just for abused and helpless, it is a home for everyone and the doors are open for all. The aim of our shelter home is to bond the families and in every case, the first attempt is to reunite the families.

Thank you for your support and for the confidence that you have placed in us. None of this would have been possible without you. With your precious support we have been and we will be able to translate Seva Mandir's commitment into a meaningful change.

Congratulations to Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer for being conferred with the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. It is a proud and joyful moment for Seva Mandir and the communities of Udaipur region with whom they conducted studies on Health and Education.

Thank you so much.

Regards

Atul Lekhra & the Seva Mandir Team

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Jul 22, 2019
Reuniting a Family

By Atul Lekhra | Manager- Resource Mobilization

Dear Friend,

As part of the Indian government’s Swadhar scheme, Seva Mandir runs a Short-Stay Home, located in a secure facility in Udaipur. Currently, 27 women with 17 children who have fled from domestic violence are housed in the facility. Women come here due to our staffs extensive outreach activities spreading across the area. Our staff attend village community meetings, go on door-to-door visits and post information to ensure women are aware of our work. This work is essential to combating the domestic violence epidemic across India as only 14% of women who have experienced physical or sexual violence have sought help to stop the violence.

According to Government data, in India, 30% of women between the ages of 15 and 49 years old have experienced physical violence and 6% have experienced sexual violence. This statistic rises to 33% for married women as 83% reported violence been given by husbands while for unmarried women violence came from mothers (60%), fathers (32%), brothers (26%) and teachers (15%).

Yet, not all cases involve domestic violence at the Short-Stay Home and require our employees to cooperate with state officials on a case by case basis. In one such case, a woman was seen begging for food and living on the streets for 1 month in Badgaon, an area next to Udaipur. Locals noticed, and as they were aware of the Short-Stay Home, they brought her to the centre. However, communication was difficult as she spoke no Hindi. The staff found a number of translators that could identify her spoken language, finding that she was from the distant state of Bihar – nearly 1,500km away. It became clear that the women had some mental health problems that prohibited her communication and memory, as she couldn’t remember how she had left her home village. After many counseling sessions with a translator she was able to convey her home address and asked the staff to call her husband and bring him to Udaipur. Our employees called the local Bihar police station, who looked through their reports and found a report for a missing person fitting her description. The police called the family and talked to the village Sarpanch (elected head) who confirmed they were searching for a missing woman who was also suffering from mental-health problems. Her husband and family came to Udaipur and happily reunited with the lost women.

Seva Mandir and the local state police were able to coordinate this search safely in order to return her home while keeping her housed and fed within the Short-Stay Home. Due to the wide variety of cases, the Short-Stay Home requires constant staff commitment and extensive use of its facilities. With the help of your donation, Seva Mandir will be able to continue to provide these women with security, medical treatment, counseling and legal as well as financial advice. They will learn new skills and it will also help them gain self-confidence.

Thank you so much.

Regards

Atul Lekhra & the Seva Mandir Team

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