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The unwed mothers of Yavatmal

Meena Menon

Complaints filed in local police stations are not pursued, they allege

YAVATMAL: A poster of Bollywood star Rani Mukherji in rich purple bridal gear is plastered on a wall in Sarita Atram’s (name changed) house in Dublipod village.

The irony is obvious when Sarita starts to narrate the story of her life, of a boyfriend who abandoned her when she was pregnant and her travails as a single mother.

While Yavatmal is notorious for its farm suicides, the stories of these women locally known as ‘kunwari matha’ (unwed mothers) are not so widely known. Sarita dropped out of school in the sixth standard when she discovered she was pregnant.

Cheated twice

Her relationship with a boy from the same village ended in failure. “I was offered Rs. 30,000 by his family to forget the whole thing and have an abortion,” she recalls.

She filed a police complaint for breach of promise, but withdrew it after the boy promised to marry her. “I was cheated twice,” she says. She did not want to abort.

Sarita’s mother Bhimbai hasn’t stopped crying. “I think the police were bribed not to take action, as he was the son of a school teacher,” she says.

Sarita’s seven-year-old daughter goes to school. “Everyone knows who the father is and I have written his name in the school records too,” she admits. The boy in question is now married.

She is among the several unwed mothers in Zari Zamni taluka of Yavatmal district. Devanand Pawar, chairperson of the health and education committee of the Yavatmal zilla parishad, has a plan of action for them.

“We had conducted a camp of sorts about six months ago in various talukas and identified around 200 such women,” Mr. Pawar said. “We are proposing to give them sewing machines. We are also trying to get them married.”

Poor healthcare

About 2.5 km from Dublipod is Matharjun village, where there are 12 unwed mothers.

The village is close to the Andhra Pradesh border and many traders come here. Some of the young girls were sexually abused by these traders.

The health care in this region is poor. The girls have no access to medical help.

In the Kolam tribe, to which most of these women belong, getting pregnant before marriage was not considered a stigma, according to Bandu Soyam, a local journalist. In fact, the system of ‘pat vivah’ regularised such pre-marital relationships when the pregnant girl was married off to the boy.

However, once the girls started filing police complaints, the ‘pat vivah’ system came to an end. Now it is very difficult to bring about a compromise between the two parties, if they belong to the village itself.

Nanu Meshram, a local school teacher, says two of his sisters were sexually exploited when they were young and abandoned to bring up their children alone.

They filed complaints at the local police station, but no arrest was made and the matter was not pursued. “One of the men came here as a driver and used to stay in the village. He promised to marry my sister but later vanished,” says Meshram. Though the girls were minor when they became pregnant, no medical examination was done and neither was the charge of rape applied. Arrests are rare in such cases.

Nanu’s sister Surekha (name changed) is bitter. Her small hut next to her parents’ house is in disrepair. “I work as a daily wage labourer. How am I supposed to manage alone with my son?” she said. At 32, she has few options. “Do something for us,” she pleaded.

Yavatmal Collector Sanjay Deshmukh told The Hindu that such instances are common in the Kolam tribal community in Zari Zamni taluka. Some of the women are in their 40s and their children are 19 or 20 years old.

Few complaints

However, the women are not outcastes, though they don’t get married. “Very few girls have come forward to register cases of breach of promise and if the girls are willing to complain, we can still take action,” Mr. Deshmukh said.

He recently met some of the women and most of them demanded BPL cards or jobs in ashram schools as peons.

Since these were difficult, he offered them land and help to set up milk cooperatives. There were no takers.

Mr. Pawar said funds were provided under the National Rural Health Mission to conduct health camps in 16 talukas of the district. Girls more than 10 years old in school or outside would be examined by gynaecologists.

Mental health professionals would also be involved in the camps.

“We also plan counselling sessions so that the girls are aware of their rights,” added Mr. Pawar.

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