Ram Singh and Radha Thapa (names changed), who hail from Pratappur-2 in the district of Kailali, fell in love with each other at their young ages. Their intimacy culminated in physical relationship resulting in Radha’s pregnancy therefore, there started to appear physical changes on Radha. However, she was too ignorant to realize that such changes were taking place due to pregnancy. It was all like nightmares for her when she later realized that she was pregnant. As months passed by, the fetus inside her womb grew bigger – allowing opportunity for the villagers to backbite. She, now revealed everything with her family members when the latter started to put pressure on her as to who the father of the fetus inside her womb was. Upon her revelation, Ram also acknowledged their relationship and its consequence. Finally Ram took her to his home as a wife but his family didn’t accept her citing that she belonged to a caste different from theirs. Hence the couple started to live in a rented room.
Few months after, she gave birth to a girl child. Radha, now, started to urge her husband for the registration of their marriage and birth registration of the baby. Ram, however, stood against her requests. She repeated her request but to no avail. Radha even threatened that she would go for divorce if he did not agree to register their marriage and birth of the baby. It too did not make any difference on her husband. She now started to spend days amid hopelessness.
Radha later on, heard about mediation center from her neighbor and registered an application. After few days, mediation session was organized by the community mediation center, where even the concerned stakeholders including her in-laws participated. During the initial phase of the mediation, her in-laws including husband, refused to accept her as their daughter-in-law again citing the caste concern. However, as the discussion and interactions continued with proper facilitation from the mediators, they agreed to take Radha to their home realizing that refusing Radha as their daughter-in-law was a mistake on their part. Ram too now agreed to have their marriage and the birth of the baby registered.
Later, the mediators also made a follow up meeting at Ram’s place, where they found that Radha as well as her baby were being treated well and marriage and birth registration was no longer a problem as they already had such task performed at their VDC.
