Adonis Diaries

Camlari, child-girl slave system in Nepal

I watched a documentary on ARTE yesterday.

There is a Taro native tribe in south west of Nepal, by India borders. They acquired immunity against paludism in these wet rice fields.

Since the women are expected to give birth almost every year, there is not enough resources to feed the ever expanding family.

And the girls, barely 6 of age, are sold to well-off families in Kathmandu. The rationale is that the family cannot afford to feed an extra mouth, and a girl to boot it.

The child-girl is supposed to be going to schools, but implicitly, the girl is sent to the fields to work as a slave and sleep in locked containers.

Camlari support groups are forming in order to educate the people and families on how the sold girls are being abused and mistreated. The law prohibit this slave system but the government is not about to apply the law.

The support groups have already freed 18,000 girls in the last decades.

What happens to these child-girls when they are freed? Who is to send them to schools and maintain them as free people?

Urmilla was sold at the age of 6 and returned to her village at the age of 17 and resumed her study. She is a member of the anti-camlari campaign and visit villages to educate the families and participate in stopping buses heading to Kathmandu and retrieving the kid-girls.