More Stories from Biratnagar
The three short narratives that follow from the Biratnagar field sites, highlight some of the terrible repercussions from the flooding in the area. The physical and mental challenges, and the strains on family life placed by the financial impact of loss of work and home are all too evident.
The stories detailed below were told by adult community members and full ethical approval and consent for their publication was granted. Their real names have not been used in this article. The research project has a robust referral mechanism with follow up procedures to ensure no unintended harm occurs as a result of the data collection.
Case 1: Enduring endless and needless pain?
The first girl we were told about, Kusum, has a physical problem that has been getting worse since she was 16 with excessive pain experienced on her lower abdomen. After flooding in the entire village by the Singhiya River on ‘Sawan 27 and 28, 2074’ (2017 on the Gregorian calendar) her house got wiped away. During the night, while fleeing from the house due to the damage the flood had caused, her family along with a further 25- 30 families from the village settled in a public area at a school. Due to lack of sanitation and proper health care during menstruation and also as a result of using old clothes, the infection she had, made her more vulnerable.
Since the flood and her family’s homelessness, the situation has become worse. From then onwards, Kusum has been bedridden. She explained that she has an unbearable pain on her lower abdomen and private parts when she tries to stand or walk. Looking at her suffering and the situation she is in, it’s clear that she is not only suffering physically but also mentally.
Lately, Kusum has been living in an old pine hut which is cold. Her father works at construction sites and her mother take cares of her. Her mother does not have any option to work outside the home as Kusum needs care at home. Due to the resulting financial crisis she has been suffering a lot more that she should be. Once during a check-up at Koshi Zonal Hospital she was referred to Dharan’s Ghopa Camp which does not seem possible right now, so at 19 years old Kusum has been virtually paralyzed. She cries all day and night and is always bed ridden. Her mother cries along with her. These days she tries to remain silent and bear the pain slowly so that her mother doesn’t cry along with her. They are hoping for support, but they haven’t received any. They think that if there had been some medical support, clean clothes and sanitary pads during the relief work after the flooding, maybe the situation could have been a lot better.
Case 2: Lack of financial help from the husband
Srijana is now 37-years-old but she got married when she was seventeen and has three sons. Due to poverty providing education for her children has always been a problem. Her elder son dropped out of school when he was in class 9, and he started working in the wood mill to support his family. Her second and youngest sons are continuing their education. Her second son is in grade 4 and her youngest son is studying in grade 2. She is worried that they might also drop out when they reach the higher grades.
Her husband works in a garment factory, but she is not aware how much he earns. He rarely provides any money for the household expenses, and sometimes if she asks for money, he beats her badly. Sometimes he goes to his parent’s house and lives with them and only returns after a few days.
Srijana has been facing challenges every day to bear the cost of her household expenses. She works in someone else’s house as a maid and earns a small amount and she uses that to take care of household expenses. At the time when she was working there, the flood took place and wiped away the village. She was only able to run back to her house a few hours after the flood, but when she got there she found nothing – the house and all her belongings had been swept away.
Just a few months ago, she tried buying land to build a home on, and as she had a few savings she used that, but she will still need to pay the loan and interest on the 250,000 Nepali rupees which she has borrowed from her saving credit group. It’s now a problem for her to repay this, and whenever she asks her husband for money for this, he refuses, so she and her eldest son are working hard to save a little and make the payments.
On top of this, she says that she has heard that her husband is having an affair with another woman, but she doesn’t know for sure, and she would never ask her husband about this because she is scared of him.
Case 3: Impact on education and mental health
Samani, 33, is having a difficult time these days. She lives with her husband and three children in a small shed like house. Her husband is a construction worker and he gets work contracted on irregular basis. The family can enjoy two meals a day only when her husband gets work. On the days when he husband doesn’t get any work, the family feed on the little food they have, or they go to sleep hungry.
Samani was living in a house near the river in Biratnagar Metropolitan Municipality Ward No. 1 when the flood occurred. Back in those days, she would also worked as a paid labourer to support her husband and family. The continuous rain and flooding on 27th-28th Shrawan 2074 (Nepali calendar), swept away her home along with the whole village. Everything was destroyed including food, furniture, some money, stocks, livestock and clothes. During the heavy rain she and all the displaced villagers took shelter at a factory, and she stayed there for more than a week to protect herself and the children. The children would cry continuously because of hunger and fear.
Various organisations had set up relief camps. They distributed tents and gave them two meals a day. Samani got a tent on the 7th day of the rain and flooding. After a month and when the rain had stopped, an organisation called Habitat helped her to build a temporary shelter using bamboo, tin and a tent in a place where they were staying temporarily. She doesn’t feel safe in that temporary shelter. She doesn’t have a toilet and after the flood she has been sick continuously. Now, she is unable to join her husband in working, and she feels mentally stressed and sometimes has emotional breakdowns. She had high hopes of sending her children to school, but now they depend on income only from her husband, so they so they can’t afford to send the children to school and can’t cover the costs of stationery and other academic requirements. Two of the children do go to an early childhood development centre in the community but this is not on a regular basis. They are deprived of formal education. She feels low and thinks that it is very difficult to overcome this level of poverty, which has been triggered largely due to the flood.
What can be done?
These human stories looked at from the perspective of women’s experience, highlight a few of the particular difficulties, women face following displacement. They challenge us again to think about the nature of violence and how traumatic natural disaster can compound existing difficulties and introduce new ones.
They challenge us to consider the scope for a more holistic immediate relief that takes gender into greater consideration, considering health (both physically and emotionally), livelihood and the importance of the ongoing wellbeing of those who have to care for family responsibilities.