"Amisha"

Amisha started Organization X, an NGO committed to combatting sexual violence. While is it no longer active, she now works as a psychological counselor and activist as she feels as though she can make more of an impact in this way. Amisha is a brave, strong woman who has experienced harm in her own life. It happened to her first when she was only 4 years old. As she grew up, she struggled with mental health, relationships, and victimhood; she realized the vital need to explore and tackle situations of sexual violence and work on creating awareness throughout Nepal. She sat down with me and told me her captivating and courageous story.

She started her story by telling me about Organization X and the work she was able to accomplish. She gave presentations in schools surrounding topics of sexual violence and discussed the meaning of this term with small children. She would also meet with students who were experiencing these issues in their own homes. While speaking with me, she paused to note the lack of resources that exist in her country. Amisha pulled upon many resources from the West that she simply found online. A part of her struggle in spreading awareness also stemmed from the closed-off attitudes of schools surrounding sex and sexual violence. She told me that when she would reach out to schools they would be unwelcoming and unaccommodating as both administration and teachers were not open to discussing sex, let alone sexual violence at all. Amisha expressed to me that many people have a misunderstanding of what the term feminism means, thinking that it means women surpass men instead of equal rights for both and that therefore makes practices linked under this umbrella term as a dangerous and “bad” trend that is hitting the world.

Amisha also gave talks on how mutual consent is of the utmost importance in relationships. She worked on this for a year or two and she talked to people about the importance of communication and expressing their boundaries. She felt a need to speak to children about these topics, as she believes that it is a societal norm for young girls to be told to be obedient and to not say the word no. She wanted to uplift and empower young girls to set boundaries, express discomfort, and refuse requests when they felt uncomfortable. She calls this act “assertive communication.” However, she expressed that “the police would not be interested in specific types of cases and often work to silence you. It’s hard to stand there and say to children that we got their back and to stand up against injustice because once they leave the classroom it is a very different world outside. We were also concerned with how pointing out these issues could cause dissonance and could be even more disturbing when young children find out that things that are not just.”

Amisha also described to me the many cases that she witnessed first hand and heard about which highlighted the need to have an NGO such as the one that she created. There was a group of political activists who were caught assaulting young teenage girls on public transportation. They threw alcohol at them, pinched them, and shouted derogatory slogans at them. Amisha, along with other activists attempted to hold these individuals accountable and the men spent two nights in jail after the police were able to track them down. While they were in jail, Amisha was bombarded with phone calls and inquiries about her life and constant questioning of why she was doing what she was. At the time, she was living alone and feared for her life. She attempted to reach out to help from organizations, but she was told she was not eligible for shelter housing. It seemed as though the only help anyone could offer her at the time was psychological counseling. As a therapist and counselor presently, Amisha understood the benefits that this does provide, but she was looking for immediate assistance and felt as though she was let down by the resources available in the area.

To make matters worse, the police let the men who assaulted these young women go, saying that there was nothing else that they could really do. This story, like the many others in Nepal, pushes Amisha to do the work that she does every day as a counselor. Many of the women that she talks to have experienced a form of sexual harm but are never really given the avenue and support to speak on these experiences when they do occur.

Despite the amazing work that Organization X was able to achieve and the amount of awareness it was able to promote, it closed during the pandemic. She expressed to me that it was always a struggle to keep the NGO open highlighting the lack of resources and help available. Supporting people who had experienced violence becomes “increasingly difficult when there is a lack of funds. When COVID hit, we had to let go of our office space and eventually close the organization.”

As someone who has experienced violence in her own life, Amisha knows of the psychological damage one endures after violence occurs. She decided to go back to school and pursue a degree in psychology so that she could help people in their journey of healing. We talked about the impact she was able to have in this way. She said, “ When women talk about their experiences of molestation and violation in therapy, they are looking for closure and a way to cope. When someone treats you unfairly in this way, it is difficult to deal with later on in life and you have constant flashbacks. I talk about my experiences with the people that I support too because I feel like it is important to share. The healing process is not easy, but through talking about it we can come to a point where the experience does not control our lives anymore.”

After talking to me about the compassionate and amazing work that she does, Amisha bravely shared with me the many instances of harm that have occurred in her own life, first by her brother, then her uncle, her cousin, and her employer. She felt isolated, alone, and afraid and felt as though she had nowhere to turn. I asked her what kind of support she wished that she had received. She told me that she wished she received support and was believed by her parents. Growing up, her brother bullied and abused her. They are both older now and do not have a good relationship, despite Amisha’s attempts to reconcile. After constant pressure from their father to speak to him, Amisha finally told her father about the abuse that she had endured over the years. Silence came next. Her father got up, left, and they never spoke about it again. “Families try to suppress the issue. There has never been any other conversation. My family pretends like no one knows anything. I wish my father could extend support.”

This took us into a discussion about South Asian culture and values. Growing up also in a half-South Asian household, I said that I felt these communities share a much more collective feel to society than more “Westernized cultures.” We spoke of how Western views are more individualistic. This is not to say that family isn’t important in the West, but within South Asian communities, it is commonplace to live with family until marriage and to live with your extended family. This is a term I recently learned myself called joint family living. This is by no means a bad thing, but we talked about how it may contribute to a fear of people judging other families. “South Asian culture has a lot to do with fear. Fear of other people knowing and judging. It is about what the other person is going to think. This is instilled in us as young girls. We are told to be obedient and to always be accommodating to those around us. We are not allowed to say no. There needs to be a shift in upbringing. Children should be taught in a way so that they know how to speak up when they are being violated and families have to respond and believe them rather than think about how it may affect their status in society.”

Amisha built upon this idea by telling me about the harm she faced from her uncle. She endured this harm from the age of five or six and well into her teenage years. She was told not to say anything because the family didn’t want his wife and her family to think badly of them. “Instead of focusing on the issue, it becomes about power and familial dynamics that are immediately around us. It is important to understand them, address them, and then break these dynamics through assertive communication.”

Amisha is an obviously strong and resilient human being. I asked her how she got to a point where the harm no longer controls every aspect of her life. She told me that being able to take responsibility for her own life both financially, physically, and emotionally has helped her feel more strong and sure of herself. “I still struggle with self-esteem and worth issues, but being able to be a responsible adult that can provide for themselves has been a big help to me.”

I then asked her about community. At first, she wasn’t quite sure what I was trying to ask, so I gave her an example from my own life. I told her that the only thing that really helped me after I had experienced harm was being immersed in a peer-to-peer support system that I knew I could open up to. As a queer woman of color, our experiences are even less likely to be believed and validated by society and especially through institutions. I found that the only peace I was able to gain was through a community of people that truly held my experiences near their hearts and believed me. She said, “support is very important. Often when we experience sexual violence, we live in isolation and we are not sure if we should be talking about it with other people. It becomes even more difficult because when you do, you get blamed and your character is assassinated. When I was 17, I was molested by my employer and I did not know what to do. I was so sad, but I managed to go to a park where I used to hang out to take a moment for myself. I saw some people that I slightly knew, and they asked me what was wrong. I all of a sudden just started talking about what had happened. No one speaks about these things and here we all were, finally talking about it. I finally felt believed and supported. This was a big moment for me. I now make sure to talk to my younger family members about these issues, so they know how to speak up and know that they are not alone. They have a community if they need it.”

Amisha is an amazing individual who I have gotten know to better over the past few weeks, and am honored to call her my friend. The way she moves through life with a certain openness and hopefulness is inspiring to me. The work that she does, despite her experiences, is uplifting and powerful. She has cultivated a community of people that she can lean on and in return, they can lean on her.