Living in uncertainty: Jyotsna longs for a place to call home

Although her name is Jyotsna, which means a moonlit night, her reality is the exact opposite. There is only uncertainty in her life. After spending three years in jail with her mother, Jyotsna stepped into Patuakhali orphanage at the age of seven. For the last 19 years, various orphanages and technical training centre had been her address.

Both the parents of Jyotsna, now 26, died and she does not know whether any of her relatives are alive. She can only remember her two aunts and two uncles but she does not know where they live now.

Now she passes her days hoping that one day her relatives will come to take her with them.

At present, Jyotsna is at the technical training centre for orphans, disabled and destitute girls of Patuakhali Social Services Department.

According to the training centre, the name of Jyotsna's father is Joynal Kha and mother is Julie. Their house was in Ganganagar village under Janjira Police Station in Shariatpur. Jyotsna's father died when she was young. She lived with her mother, who worked as a house help, in a slum in Mirpur-1 Sony Cinema Hall area of Dhaka.

When Jyotsna was four, police arrested her mother on charge of stealing a child and sent her to jail. Since, there was no guardian, Jyotsna was also allowed to stay with her mother in jail.

On March 22, 2003, at the age of seven, she was sent to Azimpur government orphanage in Dhaka from jail for her study. In the meantime, her mother passed away in prison. After staying in the orphanage for three years, Jyotsna was sent to the Government Shishu Sadan (Girls) in Rupganj, Narayanganj.

In 2018, she was sent to the technical training centre in Patuakhali with an aim to make her self-reliant through training. This has been her address for the last four years.

As the training period has completed, she now has nowhere to go.

Taking to this correspondent, Jyotsna said, "I learned poultry farming here. If my uncles or aunts take me from here, I could engage myself in poultry farming. But no one came to take me."

According to Jyotsna, her aunts' names are Ayesha and Shefali and her maternal uncle's names are Harun and Shahjahan.

Kazi Muhammad Ibrahim, deputy director of the technical training centre, told The Daily Star, "Jyotsna has been living here for a long time. Now she is desperate to go to her relatives. Every day she asks if anyone has come looking for her."