The Untold Stories of Nazma - Stories - People's Health Assembly - December 2000
The Untold Stories of Nazma
UJON, khulna
1 November 2000
Nazma is a 19-year-old married women. Like millions of destitute women, She with her husband came to the town with a dram of better life. But she has only managed to make her way to a shabby slum house. Nothing but the sing of ever engulfing poverty is distinctively evident all around Nazma’s has two children – a son and a daughter. The son is 3 and the daughter is only 10 months old. Nazma looks much older than her actual age. Her body is only shin and bone, which makes her look like an aged old woman. Many of her childhood friends (girls) are still unmarried.
Things were not always like this. Like most others Name was a lively and graceful young girl who used to still the show with her pleasant appearance. All this good things stated fading away after Nazma got married.
Nazma got married at the age of 14. It was an arranged marriage. Nazma’s husband was Rickshaw puller, then aged 25 (He is now 30). Only few months after marriage Nazma realized that there is something wrong with her husband. He was giving less attention and losing interest about Nazma. Gradually but surely Nazma’s suspicion are correct. Nazma came to know from many sources that her husband was habituated with some bad things like – visiting prostitution, gambling and taking drugs. She was very offended with the matter and had some very harsh arguments with her husband. But the situation got even worse. Her husband started staying outside even for weeks. She also identified some problems in the sexual organ of her husband. At times he became so sick that he could not go out to work for days. He used to stay with Nazma during these times. Meanwhile, Nazma started encountering some health problems. There were some kinds of skin diseases in the lower abdominal part of her body, especially around the female sexual organ. She was getting thinner and losing weight every day.
In this point of time Nazma became mother of her first child. Despite the child was not a healthy one; it was the world of hope for her. And even the newly born baby failed to change the neglecting feelings of her husband. He would come once or twice a week and used to leave 20/30 taka for the baby and the mother. Nazma’s physical condition was deteriorating very rapidly in hunger and disease.
So long she could bear the pain Nazma didn’t try for any treatment. But she always had a feeling that some thing bad is decaying her form inside. Being driven by this thinking Nazma eventually got to a health center within her community. The doctor of that center gave her some medical treatment and told her, if she wants to get (probably a paramedic) better she would have to get there with her husband. They added, she might have got this disease form her husband and her husband might have got it from any bad place like a brothel. According to the doctor this disease only spreads by sexual connection. Having this thinking in mind, Nazma returned home with a broken heart. She was very anxious, how she would approach her husband and convince him to come go treatment.
In one fine morning she approached her husband with the proposal while he responded with outrageous aggression and strongly denied the fact that he had any disease of the kind that he might have brought in from a bad place. He instead claimed that Nazma might have some kind of illegal connection from where she got the disease. So it is her responsibility to find a way out.
Since then Nazma intermittently took medicament whenever she felt extremely bad. But she never got cured, it is only a relief for few months, she did not and still do not know the reason why. In the mean time Nazma became mother for the second time. Meanwhile her husband’s visit has become more infrequent. And the monetary support that he would give has shrunk to nominal. Presently, Nazma lives with her mother in the slums were he and her who children is, somewhat make their living.
Now Nazma wants a way to earn money for the survival of her children, for the education of her children and for her treatment. But she is so devastated, both physically and mentally, by the misfortunes of her past life that she has lost the confidence and physical strength to fight back.
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