For thousands of Rasheenis out there. I hate myself for not doing more than weeping for you.
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Its 3pm in the afternoon and the small lane in the outskirt of Kathmandu is crowded as usual. Rasheeni is walking home from school. As in any day, she walks faster than her friends as she has to get home quickly. A lot of chores are waiting for her at home.
She changes quickly and hangs up her only school uniform, which she has to wear for another 4 days. She takes the leftovers from a big tin pot on the only table in their tiny shed and goes to feed the chickens. After that’s done, she rinses the pot with water she bucketed from the river 2 days ago and starts to boil rice on a small kerosene burner. While waiting for it to cook, she changes the urine soaked pants of her younger brother who has been lying inside a paper carton box since the morning. When the rice is cooked, she quickly puts out the burner to save the little fuel they have and goes to the welfare center 2 km away to get their daily ration of dahl curry and vegetables. After safely putting the rice pot and the bowl of curry on the table, only then the 8 year-old Rasheeni starts to do her homework on the dirt floor.
She is hungry but she has to wait for her mother to come back from work before they can have their dinner. Her mother works in the city as a cleaner and earns just enough wages to keep them barely alive. School was a far away dream until Mr. Santos founded the Welfare center in the village. With the help of a few NGO, Mr. Santos set up a welfare center which provides free food for the poorest families. He also started a small school for the children with the help of some volunteer teachers from overseas.
Rasheeni likes school and she is especially fond of a young teacher from Holland, Miss Ruel.
“I want to be a teacher like you when I grow up” she told Ruel many times. Ruel would give her a pat on the head and smile.
“I m sure you will, Rasheeni. I m sure.”
Her mother comes home and tells her that her grandfather will be visiting them next week and he will take Rasheeni back to his village.
They eat quietly but Rasheeni is nervous. She senses something in her mother’s voice.
“Mother, when will I come back here?”
Her mother looks away and says slowly, “you will stay there for a long time.”
“what about school? I want to continue to go to school.”
“Rasheeni. Grandpa has found a husband for you. You don’t need to go to school anymore. Your husband works in India and his family has many buffalos and big rice field. You will not be hungry.”
Rasheeni keeps quiet. She doesn’t quite understand what her mother has told her. She knows that a girl has to be married and obey her husband.
“if having a husband is good, why did father leave us?” she once asked her mother but her mother just wept and walked away.
Ruel notices Rasheeni is different today. She is usually the one who is beaming to ask questions and likes to raise her hand to answer questions. Today, she is very quiet and doesn’t say anything in class. Her big eyes look dim.
“Rasheeni. Are you alright?” Ruel asks the 8 year-old Rasheeni after class.
“I will stop school next week because I will be married in my grandfather’s village.”
“But you are just 8 years old. My god. How can they do that to you?”
Rasheeni looks up with her glassy eyes and says “Miss Ruel. I don’t want to marry. I want to come to school and be a teacher like you one day.”
Ruel hugs her and promises to help.
Inside his office at the welfare center, Mr. Santos takes a sip of his tea and looks at Ruel.
“Miss Ruel. Such things happen almost every day here in this part of the world. Child marriage is very common.”
“But she is just 8 years old. For god sake. Can’t we do anything to help her?”
“Legally, we can’t do anything. But that’s not what I fear most for little Rasheeni.”
“What can be worse than that?”
“It’s also very common for poor families to sell their young daughters to brothels in India. Many men believe having sex with young virgins can cure their illnesses such as AIDS and TB. Young girls are especially in high demand in the coming festive month”
“WHAT!” Ruel cups her hand over her mouth in disbelief. It’s beyond her comprehension such cruelty even exists.
Mr. Santos shakes his head and sighs. Throughout the years, he had seen one too many worse cases.
A girl in remote Gujerat was sold for 3 times by her own parents. Every time she was rescued by the police and brought back to her parent, only to be sold again. Sometimes when he closes his eyes, that image of the tortured young girl he found locked in the back room of the brothel would come to him. The blank face with total hopelessness in the eyes. The lash marks on her young, skinny naked body.
“Ruel, sometimes I wish I could help them all but the reality is we can only do so much. I understand how it feels” Santos says sadly.
Ruel doesn’t give up. She goes to the police, the district officer and even the Dutch high commission in Kathmandu for help.
“There’s nothing we can do. We don’t have enough man power to help.” The inspector tells her.
“Her mother has legal right to decide for her daughter.” The district officer says.
“We have to respect the local culture and not to interfere in local affairs.” The Dutch high commissioner’s secretary says to her in perfect manner.
After she goes back the next week, Ruel finds only 7 pupils are left in her class of 10. Rasheeni and 2 other young girls are missing from her class forever.
