Seema Tharu (real name withheld), permanent resident of Bardiya had had an arrange marriage to Bidhan Tharu (real name withheld) on March 2015 and since then she had been living with her husband, mother-in-law and father-in-law. Before her marriage, in-laws used to give their agricultural land to other farmers under sharecropping. As the yields received under the sharecropping were insufficient for them Seema started to cultivate her land herself now.
At first, her in-laws were very happy with her work. But situation turned different over months. Seema required in looking after the farm and family, she had to interact and deal with her neighbors and relatives. Bidhan didn’t like such relations. He started to suspect her of having affair with them and even started to physically abuse pressurizing her to leave home. Over days, Bidhan started to beat her under influence of alcohol and the incidents of violence increased. She approached ‘badghar’, traditional dispute settler among Tharu community, for the resolution of their problems but in vain. On 2nd April 2016, he again beat her against which she again approached the Badghar and now declared that she would resort to suicide rather than enduring violence and torture.
A Community Mediator of Bagnaha VDC was informed of her problems and failure of the Badghar to resolve her problem. Through VDC secretary, her problem was registered at CMC located at Bagnaha VDC. Accordingly, on 3 April 2016 the CMC Seema and Bidhan were called to Mediation Center for discussion. Mediators in the CMC facilitated their disputes and following the discussion it was concluded and realized by the disputing parties that the whole issue was emerged out of unfounded suspicion. Both the parties realized their mistakes and agreed to live without quarreling and doubting each other.
Their implementation status of agreement was followed up by Bardiya based project team which found that their familial and conjugal life was happy. When we asked them about service of CMC, Seema told that “Its’ really a good service; it has given me a life. I have never expected that my husband would ever behave me so nicely. So, if anyone faces similar problems like me, I will refer them to CMC. And I would like to thank all the mediators who facilitated my case.”
