Amol was hardly 14 when she got married and moved from Lucknow to Mumbai with her husband. But the so-called City of Dreams turned out to be a nightmare for her.
She gave birth to her first child within a year of marriage at a tender age of 15. She conceived her second child soon after.
Her husband, much older than her, was abusive.
He used to beat her every day over petty things. “ For him, I was just a machine to produce children and do household work. Once, he hit me in the eye and it started bleeding. He had to take me to a doctor,” says Amol. “During the dressing, the doctor figured that I was in an abusive marriage and sent us to the Sion hospital. There the doctor not just treated my eye, but counselled my husband and asked him not to beat me," she says.
But nothing changed.
A year later, after giving birth to her third child, Amol felt numbness in her chest, suffocation and palpitation. The doctor diagnosed her with severe depression and asked her to stay at the hospital for a few days.
Amol, now 36, has since lived more or less the same life. While constant counselling and intervention by an NGO have stopped physical abuse, emotionally, she is as vulnerable as ever. "I am not educated and after my parents died I had no option but to live with my husband, who has been my only financial support," she says.
Not too far from Amol’s house in Dharavi, the biggest slum in Mumbai, lives Saira Seikh, who too was a chirpy teenager when she got married. Her husband was suffering from schizophrenia and used to get violent at times. Young Saira didn't know about his disease and there was no one to help her either. "For my mother-in-law, it was usual for a husband to beat up his wife. The fact was my husband used to beat me up under the influence of his disease," says Saira.
Saira Sheikh now helps other women suffering from domestic violence
But she got to know about the complexity of his disease quite late. She was suffering from severe depression when she contacted an NGO in the neighbourhood. The doctors associated with this NGO diagnosed his husband with schizophrenia --- and her with depression. "He died early. I joined an NGO and started my life all over again. For the first time I took charge of my life. I feel empowered. I had forgotten to laugh, now I do," she says.
Several researches have proved that domestic violence results in many psychological, biological, neurological, behavioural, and physiological changes in women. Studies have also shown a significantly higher rate of PTSD among women facing domestic violence.
Nayreen Daruwala, director, Sneha, an NGO, which has been working with women suffering domestic violence, says these women require not just societal support, but also medical aid, legal intervention and rehabilitation. "Every woman should be pulled out of an abusive marriage and relationship. But it is difficult for women who are not educated and are financially dependent on their spouses," she says.
Sneha runs a rehabilitation programme for such women. They enrol, engage and train them to support other women in their community. It gives these women confidence and a sense of empowerment.
But experts feel that the problem is not limited to uneducated and dependent women. Even educated, financially independent women find it difficult to cope up with an abusive marriage.
Arpita Singh, an advertising professional, met Aalam at her first job. The two got married after a year of courtship. But soon after the marriage, Aalam's behaviour towards Arpita changed. "I got to know he has many debts and had many police complaints against him. When I confronted him, he became abusive," she says.
Though Arpita was a self-dependent, educated girl, she took seven years to come out of that abusive relationship.
"Domestic violence is not restricted to a particular social-economic class. It is there in every section of the society and since it is generally confined to the bedroom, between the husband and wife, women generally find it difficult to prove it," says Shilpi Jain, a Supreme Court lawyer.
The insecurity of an abusive relationship is like a slow poison and not many women can cope on their own. Experts feel there is an urgent need for an institutional support system that can help these women in the time of distress. "There is generally 5-6 months gap between two hearings in such cases, and a case on an average takes 2-3 years. It prolongs the waiting period, heightening the sense of insecurity, uncertainty among women," says Jain.
She feels that along with a quick legal intervention, these women need mental support, therapy and counselling, which is rare in the country. “It is high time we created a robust support system for them," she says.
Some names have been changed to protect the identity