The case of the fugitive father

Left alone in this world

The same old sorry story of exploitation and desertion...
Nineteen-year-old Sithar Lhazom was contributing woola (compulsory labour) for some gewog developmental work when she met Jigme, a machine operator.
They met in Barkhue, Zhemgang, where he worked for the construction of Buli-Barkhue farm road in Shingkhar. She used to ferry cement from Buli to the gewog centre.
For the class two drop out, Jigme’s proposal to marry her meant an escape from the harsh village life she endures everyday and she was more than happy to accept the proposal.
Sithar Lhazom conceived and was six months pregnant when her ‘husband’ went to Reutala in Trongsa to work. “But he promised that he’d come back and take me with him,” she said.
That was in 2010.
Today, Sithar has a five-month old baby, whose census she could not register, because she does not have a marriage certificate and an identity card photocopy of the father.
Jigme, Sithar said, instead of coming back to take her, changed his mobile number and told people that he was not the father of her child.
Carrying her one-month old child, Sithar Lhazom walked for two days till Buli, and then hitched a ride to Reutala to meet him. “But when I reached there, he refused to even look at my daughter,” she said.
Sithar Lhazom returned home and her parents asked the gewog gup to mediate. In February this year, Jigme came with a few bottles of beer and Nu 500 to settle the case mutually.
When her family asked him to settle the child’s provisions, he said he didn’t have the money, but told the family that he owned a Maruti van in Wangduephodrang and that the family could keep that.
He left once again to get the maruti van and never returned.
Sithar and her family filed the case in Zhemgang dzongkhag court in February, but the court could not proceed with the case since they could not summon Jigme. “We couldn’t locate him with the address she gave us,” Zhemgang drangpon, Sonam Dorji, said.
The drangpon also said that, since it was a civil case, the court could not seek police intervention. “Even if we seek their help, they need a proper address, which is lacking in the case,” he said.
The court has decided to ask Sithar Lhazom to find Jigme’s whereabouts herself.
Meanwhile, Sithar and her family, whose two-storied house was razed to ground by fire on the night of May 21, said they needed his identity card photocopy to have the child’s census with them.
“I’m worried about the future of our granddaughter,” Sithar Lhazom’s father, Sonam Zangpo, 56, said. “Without the father’s details, we won’t be able to register her.”
Sithar’s neighbour said Jigme is from Chema village of Yalang gewog in Trashiyangtse, but he could not trace him. “Court and police should help to find him to bring justice to the mother and child,” the neighbour said.
By Tashi Dema