When Sushil left, Radhika was, in fact, too ill to really feel anything other than

relief that she was finally home with Rohan. She was aware that Sushil had done

something that was quite extraordinary. He was the reason that she was here in

the heart of her family. When he left she certainly didn’t feel abandoned by him,

just extremely sad that she might never see him again. He had done her a great

service that she simply couldn’t repay.

Radhika had dreamed of returning home for years. For a long time it had been

just that, a dream, but Sushil had helped make it possible. Like Jigmi, Reeta,

Laxmi and Riya, through his extreme kindness, Radhika and Rohan had a chance

of a new life.

Back home, she had a million questions to ask her family and a million things

to tell them. She wanted to hug them, drink in their presence, study their features

and see how they had changed, but she was finding it difficult to focus on

anything. Radhika’s health was deteriorating once again. She had not been able

to shake off the symptoms of typhoid – and her miscarriage was also causing her

to bleed profusely again. Moreover, sleeping outdoors was exacerbating her

symptoms and her temperature was fluctuating greatly.

Luckily, another saviour emerged just in time. Word of Radhika’s return had

reached her sister, Parvati, in Kathmandu. She wasted no time in getting a taxi to Kavresthali.

When she arrived, Parvati was deeply shocked by what she saw. As she

recalls the moment she set eyes on her sister after all that time, her eyes fill with

tears:

‘I had always believed that Radhika’s husband had returned to her after

Rohan’s birth and had taken his wife and child to another part of Nepal for a

better life.

‘Well, perhaps that’s what I wanted to believe. The alternatives were too

painful to contemplate. I just hoped that Radhika was happy and felt sure that

she would get in touch when she felt ready. I was certainly not prepared for the

sight that greeted me.

‘Radhika [seemed] close to death and was bleeding profusely. Her bleeding

was so bad; she looked like she had been in a traffic accident. And Rohan [was]

severely traumatized. ‘He wasn’t even able to speak because of an inexplicable

injury on his tongue and he appeared to understand only Hindi and no Nepali.

He was also experiencing severe memory loss.

‘Radhika was still insisting she had been working in a carpet factory but I

sensed there was more to her trauma so I persuaded her to come back to

Kathmandu with me to convalesce in my home. I knew my husband wouldn’t be

happy but how could our own flesh and blood be forced to sleep outside in the

cold? I was afraid Radhika might die.’

Back at Parvati’s family home, Radhika finally confessed her horrific

experiences to her elder sister. For months, she had agonized about how she

could tell her family the true sordid story of what had happened to her since

leaving Nepal that first time.

She wondered if it was better to spare them the pain of knowing what had

really happened to her and Rohan, if it was better just to keep silent and pretend

that she had been pursuing legitimate work opportunities. In the end, she

couldn’t bear the burden of keeping it to herself any longer. She knew there was

an element of risk involved in divulging the brutal facts to Parvati. Her sister

could blame Radhika for being naive and stupid, for bringing shame on the

Phuyal name, but in the end Radhika knew that the truth had to come out and

Parvati had, in recent years at least, proved herself a friend as well as a good

sister.

Radhika recalls, ‘One night when her husband was out working at his bag

factory, I broke down and told her everything. She told me that I should not be afraid because she would support me and stand by me … Ever since then, she

has been true to her word.’

They decided to go to the police together. Surely they could do something to

prevent this from happening to other girls? Radhika felt strongly that she had to

speak about her experiences, no matter how difficult it was. She felt a duty to

Laxmi, Reeta and Riya. She felt a duty to herself and to Rohan to do so.

But when Parvati and Radhika eventually made it to the police station in

Kathmandu, they were horrified by their reception. After haltingly telling her

story, gently coaxed on by Parvati, who sat clutching her hand, Radhika watched

the tired-looking officers slouched across the desk from them. Their stance

wasn’t encouraging – if anything they seemed bored. They had glanced at one

another when Radhika began recounting her excruciating story.

One of them smirked before commenting on her ordeal: ‘Really? That must

have been terrible for you and the tens of other women who come in here and

say the same thing.

‘What do you expect [to happen to you] if you disappear with a stranger in the

dead of night? Foolish woman!’

Radhika and Parvati stared back at the man in shock. He made it sound as if it

was her fault that she had been trafficked? As if what she had told him was

really unimportant and she was wasting his time. Whatever Radhika had

expected it wasn’t that response.

The two women left the station completely disheartened. If the police weren’t

willing to do anything to stop this horrific practice from happening, how would

it ever end? Then, Parvati had the idea of going to Krishna ‘Purne’ Pariyar’s

house.

Radhika knew roughly where he lived and after asking around found out

exactly where his house was. She wasn’t sure what to do when she and Parvati

reached there, standing outside the gate, looking at the building that Pariyar had

most probably bought with the proceeds from his trafficking. In the end, Parvati

spurred her on, her sister’s presence giving Radhika the strength to knock on the

door.

When it opened a woman stood there, looking out at them suspiciously. She

informed them that her husband was out. She struck Radhika as a good religious

woman, slightly pious and it was this that Parvati ended up playing on. She told

the woman that if she knew about her husband’s crimes and didn’t come forward

then she would have terrible karma. In her next lives, Parvati added, she would be punished if she failed to do the right thing.

After some time, the woman gave in. Parvati and Radhika accompanied her

back to the police station and encouraged her to report her husband’s trafficking

crimes.

‘But still no one helped us,’ Radhika comments bitterly.

However, this time as they were leaving the station for the second and last

time, the gods again, it seemed to Radhika, intervened to help her and Rohan.

‘[A] man came in to report a traffic accident,’ Radhika recalls. ‘He saw how

distressed we were and asked if he could help us. We told him how I had fallen

prey to human traffickers and he advised us to go immediately to a refuge called

“Maiti Nepal”. He gave us the address and wished us good luck.

‘By now I had lost everything – my friends, my family and my innocence, but

I still had a child to take care of. I had no choice but to head into the unknown

one last time.

‘We left the police station, hailed a taxi and handed the driver the address for

Maiti Nepal.

‘“No need,” he responded politely, waving the piece of paper away. He knew

where the refuge was. “It is becoming very well known,” [he added].’

Bundled into the back of the taxi with Rohan and Parvati, Radhika mentally

braced herself for further disappointment and heartache. What if they were again

refused help? Could she bear it? This was, after all, their last chance.