“All my life I have been running away to save myself. When I was eight, I ran away from my father who would come home drunk everyday and molest my cousin. In his drunken stupor he would make holes in the cooking pots and ask me to cook. It was his punishment for me for “having it easy” in life. Mother had already divorced him and moved to her parents village in Udaypur. The night I leftfather’s house, I remember I had stolen money from my teachers bag because we had no money for the road. I lived with mother for a year or two before I was brokered into coming to Kathmandu to work in the carpet factory. It was no less than slavery with almost 18 hours of work inside the walls of the factory. Because I could not bear it anymore, I ran away. A distant relative took me in. I would go with her to the river side to steal sand. I would also help her crush rocks. One night while I was asleep I woke up to find her husband sleeping naked next to me. He was fondling me. I ran away from that house too but I broke his head. Now I had no place to go. Someone I knew got me a job at the snooker place. My job was to fill marijuana cigarettes for the customers who’d come to bet. These men were gangsters and dons. During the day I worked there and at night I slept on the couch, all alone. One day as I tried to avoid the advances of a customers, he sexually assaulted me. I gave him a good fight and ran away from that place too. All to save myself. As I went from door to door searching for work, a cabin restaurant hired me. And because I looked like a tom boy then, I was sent into the back to wash dishes. With this job, I was able to share a room with two other girls. Things felt settled as I had food, shelter and work. And I had started becoming happier living life in my own terms. But not so long after, I fell in love with a man. And everything changed.” (Annie Sunuwar, Kathmandu)