Taken from an Interview in Kanpur, India in 2008
‘My father was a very cruel person, he was always beating my mother. After some time my mother died from my father’s torture. Then he married again, and he always beat his second wife as well. He was really very cruel.
He put my [step mother] in a box and locked it, sometimes he put fire so that she burned all up her body. He tied a chain and locked it round her ankle, sometimes he beat her so many times [she would] wet herself.
I was small and didn’t do anything, sometimes he tortured me also. There are still marks on my leg.
My step mother fell down and cracked her hip, nobody took her in so I admitted my mother to hospital. My Father was told, [came to the hospital] and threw my mother onto the garbage and said ‘Don’t bother with her’.
I went to my father and fought – ‘You should take care of my mother because she is injured and needs help from you!’ He refused.
Then Seema and Ranno (pictured below) told me about Sakhi Kendra (A Christian Aid partner organisation) and we contacted them six months ago (August 2007). They came and organised a public meeting at my father’s place. There were approximately 200 people there and they motivated and organised a signature campaign for justice, for shelter for my mother and for her rights.
About 150 women petitioned the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) and gave him the signature campaign. Then the SSP ordered the police into organising an enquiry – the women said no to this [as it wasn’t enough] – so SSP ordered the police in charge to go with the women to the house of my father.
The women threatened that if the police didn’t help quickly then they would have sit down and hunger strike. This made the police help and they evicted my father.
The group of women went to the hospital and took my step mother and put her into my father’s house. My father was chucked out, he came wanted to take food and money but the group of women told him to go away. My step mother told him to go away because now it’s her house.’
All the women now provide support to Gita’s step mother. At present she can walk with a Zimmer frame but is in a lot of pain. Gita added ‘She said she couldn’t come here [to meet us] so told us to tell her story.’
Gita’s friend Seema said ‘We have acheived so much, perhaps we couldn’t have helped without Sakhi Kendra.’
Gita stated: ‘We want to help other women also, and we feel we have power. We can do anything.’
Sakhi Kendra is a partner organisation funded and supported by Christian Aid working for women’s rights, against violence and abuse against women, and helping individual women in trouble.
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