“My childhood was spent like an orphan. Love was only for the story books. When my mother eloped, she was pregnant with me. After I was born, father found us but didn’t take me until I turned one and started resembling him. Back at my father’s, my grandmother raised me. I never went to school. I never got any love from my stepmother. She would hit me at the smallest of mistakes and make me work all day, all night. She would forcefully put heavy sacks of rice in my back and make me walk several hours to the mill. I was only 12 then. I think father wasn’t able to bear the pain of seeing his daughter suffer and neither could he confront his wife. One day he came to me and said, “Chori, I can’t see you like this. You will have to go.” After a few weeks, I was married and sent off.”(1/2) (Akriti Mahato, Meghauli, Chitwan)