Eight months ago, Rama left her home, taking with her her three children after she could not endure physical and mental torture meted to her by her husband. The victim, a resident of Patan Municipality in Baitadi, since leaving her husband’s house has been working as a daily wage worker at Mahendranagar of Kanchanpur district for her livelihood.

“He (husband) had been repeatedly thrashing me for the past seven/eight years. I could not endure the torture anymore so I left him and the house,” said Rama, who asked her last name to be withheld for privacy reasons, adding she had no plans to return home.

After leaving her house, Rama, who is in her mid-30s, had first taken shelter at a safe house in the district headquarters. She stayed there for a few weeks, and then went to Mahendranagar in search of work. “I have to work to manage two meals for me and my children. It’s a difficult life for us,” said Rama. But she says she would endure hardships than stay at home and be a victim of domestic violence.

Kalpana, in her late twenties, too is a victim of domestic violence. “My husband tortured me to no end and finally left me a few years ago. He’s a policeman and I don’t even have the courage to file a case against him,” she said. She currently works as a daily wage worker for her livelihood in the district headquarters.

These are not isolated cases of domestic violence in the district. Many women and children have fallen victims to domestic violence. Police Inspector Dipak Patali at the District Police Office in Baitadi Bazaar said incidents of domestic violence are unchecked in the district. Women, children and senior citizens are hit hardest by the problem, he added.

Eighty-six cases of domestic violence against women, children and elderly people were filed at the District Police Office in the fiscal year 2018-19. The number of such cases was 95 and 98 in the fiscal year 2016-17 and 2017-18 respectively.

The cases of domestic violence could be even higher, as such cases are also registered at the judicial committee at the local level.

Forty-eight different cases have been registered at the judicial committee of Patan Municipality in the past two years. “Most of the cases registered at the committee are incidences of violence against women,” said deputy mayor Saraswoti Koli who is also the coordinator of the judicial committee.