Twenty-two-year-old Muna BK (name changed) from Balthali VDC-4 in Kavre had left for Jordan in search for job about a year ago. But things did not go as she had wished; she has returned home now — but not with money she wanted to earn on foreign land, but with something that could haunt her for rest her of life. 

She is five months pregnant. She has only promises to recount of a man who cheated her. Shattered dreams and a broken heart all she has now. With a dream to make some money so that she could help her poor family, BK had left for Jordan after securing a two-year labour permit to work at a garment factory in the Arab country in the Western Asia. 

She then met a compatriot who was working as a security guard for the same company. For like any other person in a foreign land, it was but obvious for her to feel comfortable with person who was from home country. But 29-year-old Rajendra Luitel of Barbote VDC, Ilam, had something else in mind. “We fell in love,” she says. “When I realised I was pregnant, I talked to Rajendra who asked me not to worry. We decided to fly back to Nepal to get married.”

Rajendra flew to Nepal on May 8. “He asked me to come eight days later,” she says. “I had sent Rs 20,000 and a mobile phone with him for my family.”

BK arrived in Nepal on May 19. When she inquired about Rajendra with his family, she came to know that he had already left for Malaysia. “I trusted him. He had pledged to marry me. I feel cheated,” said BK at a programme organised by the Association of Wives of Civil Servants in Dhulikhel today. “I was forced to go to Jordan after my father sold off everything, including land, we had,” she said.

Published on: 15 June 2014 | The Himalayan Times