KATHMANDU, March 19: “One day, my mother yelled at me and hit me after she found out I was looking for work. I tried to explain to her that I wanted to be able to go to school, so I wanted to work. But she got furious and said that I wasn’t her daughter anymore. It’s been five years since I last saw her,” says Babita (name changed), a 16-year-old who is currently studying in class eight in Mahendra Boudha Higher Secondary School in Boudha.[break]
Childhood isn’t all about rainbows and butterflies, at least not for some children who’ve had to go through a lot of suffering and hardships. These children have had to take up adult-like responsibilities way before they are normally required to and are still struggling.
When Babita talks about her scarred childhood, she’s strong vocally. She talks about how she hasn’t seen her father all her life, how her mother used to drink and bring different men home all the time, how she had to quit school because three months of her tuition fees at school was pending. After her mother left, she started working as house help with a family so that she could go to school.
Keshab Thoker/Republica
“Now that I know what it feels like, I only hope that no child has to experience working at someone else’s house,” she says. “They (the family she worked for) used to scold me and beat me up for even the smallest mistakes that I made. If I woke up late, they kicked me off my bed,” she shares. Yet she put up with all that just to be able to go to school.
There always would be too much work, she shares, speaking of days when she had to go to school on an empty stomach because there was no time to eat in the morning, due to her workload. “The Didi used to always sit and watch TV while I had to do every chore imaginable, from doing the dishes to taking care of the baby,” says Babita.
She didn’t have much time to give to schoolwork and because she couldn’t practice enough, she’s been failing in mathematics. But last year, she had had it.
“So I put my books and some clothes in my bag and threw it from the terrace, then slowly crept out of the house at 2am and ran away,” she shares. “I spent the night at Swoyambhu and went to a friend’s house, which is where I’ve been living now,” she adds.
Babita is fearless and wishes to become a social worker in the future. “I want to correct my parents’ mistake by becoming a good person and show the world that just because the parents went the wrong way; their children don’t necessarily have to do the same,” says Babita, her tearful eyes showing the desperation to prove the world otherwise.
Today, she’s living with a friend and her friend’s mother who’s been kind enough to take care of Babita, like she was her own daughter. Things are slightly better for her now that she’s found a way to be free from modern-day slavery.
But for 13-year-old Sunita (name changed), juggling housework at her employer’s house and doing well at school are still a challenge.
“The house chores are very hard,” says Sunita who shares that she has to clean the whole house and do heavy laundry at least three times a week, among other chores. “They yell at me all the time and complain that I haven’t been working well and they also beat me,” she says.
The eldest of three children, Sunita lost both her parents and came to Kathmandu to work for a family who promised her to let her go to a good school. She’s now studying in class seven at Shram Rastriya Secondary School in Tusal.
“I only get to study in the afternoons after I’m done with all my works,” says Sunita, adding, “They (her employees) ask me not to study using electricity.” While the family rarely buys her stationery, they are also unwilling to buy her medicine when she’s ill. “They bring me medicine only if I’m very sick,” she shares, adding that she has to work even then.
There’s no extra money for her at work, the family pays her by paying for her education. Opportunity for education is the only reason she’s here, far away from her brother and sister in Sankhuwasabha which, at the moment, would be beautiful with all the blossoming of the rhododendrons, she recalls.
Even though Salina, 15, lives with her own family, she still has to work a lot at home and so can’t allot time for her education. With eyeliner and a faint coat of lipstick on, Salina looks a bit too old for her age. But the maturity in her character compliments.
A student of class eight at Mahendra Boudha Higher Secondary School, she’s the eldest of her siblings and has taken up the responsibility of running the house and taking care of her brother and sister while her parents are mostly battling their differences out.
“I hate festivities because that’s the time when my parents get most drunk and start to fight,” recollects Salina who sometimes tries to separate her parents and gets hurt in the process. Her brother is at an age where he can understand what’s going on but Salina makes it a point to shield her little sister from her parents’ fights and sends her off to her uncle’s place during those times.
She likes to cook but hates doing all the other housework. “I can study only after putting my siblings to sleep after 9pm,” she says, sharing that she usually studies till 11pm. There are times when she can’t complete her homework but she rarely tells her teachers the real reason. “I tell them that there was no electricity,” she smiles.
“I feel that there’s no one in our country who will empathize with the troubles of children like me,” Salina says, adding, “I want to grow up to be a teacher who will not only teach but also be there for the students.”
There’s so much to learn about life from these children, and so much they would want to say if they knew there was someone trustworthy who would listen to them and help them out.