“You Will See”

 

When I met the Women’s Welfare Group in the Terai District of Chitwan for the first time, the women shared an all too common story of how they had to fight their husbands to join the group. Their husbands argued that they didn’t want the “hen to start doodle-dooing like a cock.” When the husbands forbade their wives from leaving the house in an attempt to stop them from joining the group, the women stood up for themselves and said defiantly, “you will see what we want to do.”

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Once the women started to build successful businesses with loans obtained from the group, their husbands acknowledged they were wrong and begged for loans themselves! Before joining the group these women felt they had to rely on their husbands to make decisions and direct their lives; but now, with the support from the other women and their own income, they have autonomy and independence and a newfound respect from their husbands.