[Content trigger warning: physicial and sexual violence and loss of a child]

My name is Tarla* and I am from a remote part of Western Nepal. I am now with 3 Angels, where I am very happy, but I have a very sad story. I don’t like to share or tell many people, but I would like to tell you today.

When I was younger, I got married. This husband—so-called husband—never treated me well. We were married two years when I became pregnant. My husband was 25 and I was 20. One day, when I was nine months along with my baby, he beat me.

He beat me so hard that my baby died.

I was losing blood and no one said I would survive. People took me to the hospital and I had to take a lot of blood. It was very hard for me to remove the baby, which was dead.

My husband never mentioned our child again.

After this was done, he came and said he would be different. He said we would go to New Delhi. He promised me many good things. 

He said, “Here in Nepal, you don’t get good food or fruit or juice. I will give you good clothes and then we can stay very happily together. It’s hard here, people don’t like us, so let’s go to India and spend a good life.”

So I thought, Maybe that’s what is good for me. 

When he took me to New Delhi, he took me to a little shop and said that he would come back shortly and he disappeared. I waited for him for a couple of hours and there was no sign of him coming back—and then I realised, I have been sold.

I looked out and saw my husband counting money with two other men behind the shop. He was speaking in the local language, which I don’t speak, but I picked up a little bit of their conversation. 

One of the men gave my husband some money. He was a Nepali man. He didn’t look any good. He was just a strict fellow.

He had a phone in his hand and he was trying to call other people and I got scared.

Standing there, I could hear some Nepali people walking by, talking in my own language. I ran out of the shop and asked them for help. These two men gave me a little money, enough to get a bus ticket. 

I didn’t look back. I ran as fast as I could to the bus station and caught a bus up to the border.

When I came to Nepal, I hurried to see the aunties here at 3 Angels. I told them all my problems and what my husband had done. I told them that I couldn’t go back to my parents because he will find me there and take me again. 

And that’s how I came to stay at the women’s safe haven.

After all of my struggles and tears, I feel like I have come to heaven. Every aunty and uncle here is loving and caring. They are more to me than my own parents; they love me so much and care for me so much.

When I was taken to the hospital—when I went to have my baby—I thought I would die there. I had no hope that I would survive. 

But where I am today gives me so much hope and energy. I would like to go back to my village with some skills to do something for myself. I’m not sure whether my parents would accept me or not—but I would very much like to go and see my mother and father.

There are so many sisters here that I know are crying like me. But I would like to thank 3 Angels Nepal for picking me up and giving me a life.

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*Name changed and representational photo used to protect the individual’s identity

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