When Nepal Police set up Women and Children Service Directorate (WCSD), the main objective was ensuring women and children’s easy access to the law enforcement agency so that they could report in case any offence is committed against them. 

As far as authorities are concerned, the move has been quite a success with the directorate managing to save and protect many victims (women and children) and bring offenders to book. 

But of late, the WCSD has been receiving complaints from men as well, in most of the case from those returning from foreign employment. Some complaints are related to physical and psychological torture perpetrated by wives. 

According to the records maintained by the WCSD, two months ago Deepak (name change), who hails from Dolakha and temporarily lives in Kathmandu, filed a case against his wife. 

He was working abroad. When he returned, he found that his wife living with another man and had a three-month-old baby from him. According to Lama’s complaint, earlier he used to return to Kathmandu every seven-eight months, but this time it took a longer time as he was returning for good. The money he had sent to his wife, according to him, had been transferred in her mother’s name. Finding himself at his wit’s end, Lama knocked on the doors of the WCSD. Now he wants divorce from his wife and claiming Rs 900,000 that he had sent while working abroad. 

On March 20, Pradeep (name changed) filed a case at the WCSD, claiming that he had suffered psychological trauma due to his wife’s unwillingness to stay with him. But she would refuse to divorce him, according to the complaint. The couple moved to the Capital some six years ago and was living in a house in Kalanki. According to Pradeep, during their initial days in Kathmandu, a man, a driver for long-route buses, had come in their contact. But later on, according to the complaint, he found the man spending time with his wife during the day when he was out to work. Now he wants divorce, but his wife is refusing. He has told police that the mental pressure was so much that he started relying on antidepressants. 

According to the WCSD, forty-five cases have been filed by men this fiscal year. 

In most of the cases, extramarital affair was the main reason why men were filing the complaints. 

An official at the WCSD, who did not want to be named, told the Post that women back at home with their husbands working abroad could go astray at times for various reasons, including the money, which is a good servant but can be a bad master. 

Through social networking sites also women tend to get in touch with different kinds of people and a wrong move can ruin family life, say experts. 

SSP Chhabilal Joshi said there has been an upward trend of extramarital affair of late, which also is the root of the problem. Terming it a discouraging trend, he called for exercising caution.