Case story no. 24, Rita

I interviewed this girl today, and her story is the kind that makes me want to give these employers a piece of my mind. She's a good kid, and they better have some seriously bad karma coming their way.

Rita is a lovely 18 year old girl. She is from the Sarlahi district. A prominent member of Rita’s village liked her and wanted to move to Kathmandu and take Rita on as a worker. Her parents didn’t have very much money so they sent her away. She was seven years old.

Since Rita left, she has only returned home once. When she was 12, both her parents died within months of each other. She had a younger brother and sister, but since she left at such a young age, she isn’t sure what happened to them.

She has been working in Anamnagar for 11 years. She does all of the household chores. At first she was too little to do the cooking and all of the washing, but when she was nine she took on all the duties of the house. When her parents were alive her employers sent them her salary. When they died six years ago, they just stopped paying. They used to say that they would pay her when she got married, but they stopped saying that about a year ago. She has worked for 11 years and never received any payment for herself.

Five months ago a community police officer that works with CWISH came to Rita’s employers and told them that there was free education for domestic workers and they had to send her. When Rita first attended the DIC she was very introverted and wouldn’t share about her problems. She would go home and her employers would give her massive amounts of work. She would wake up hours before her employers to try and get ahead with her chores. When she finally had finished she would try to study but her employers would scold her saying “It’s time to sleep. Turn off the lights and go to bed.”

The facilitator at the Anamnagar DIC kept encouraging Rita to keep a positive attitude. Rita had a boyfriend of a different cast. He was a sweeper, but Rita convinced him to join the army and have a better life. He left to join the army and married another girl because Rita wasn’t a member of his cast. She was devastated. She told the facilitator “I can’t go on, I want to die.” The facilitator helped her to see that there is more to life, and she can’t give up.

The facilitator wanted Rita to continue her studies. In a few short months she had learned to read and write very well. Her writing had no mistakes and she was excelling in her other subjects. Rita told the facilitator “If I go to school, I will have to stay with my employer and I can’t stand the way they treat me.” Rita expressed interest in becoming a police officer and the facilitator and Rita are trying to find her a job in the women’s police force.

Rita gained a lot from attending the DIC. “Being here taught me about child rights. Now I stand up to my employer and tell her she has no right to treat me badly. I also learned about sex abuse and how to protect myself.” She has built up her confidence and found a new strength and new goals.

We ask her what advice she has for other employers. She is confident in her reply “When a child starts working at a young age he or she doesn’t know how important education is. An employer might ask a child once or twice if they would like to go to school, but the children are small and scared and don’t know what to do, so they say no. When I grew up I realized that education is the only chance I have. Employers have to show children how important school is. They don’t treat us like their own children. We can never be equal to them because we are always separated. We can’t sit on the furniture; we sleep in a separate place; we do all of the work; we carry their things and clean up their messes. I can never be equal to her so I must get an education.” Rita’s employer never went to school and has a negative attitude about Rita’s studies. “She scolds me a lot, and doesn’t help me or make it easier for me, but now I’m the one that can read and write.”