Years ago Chaudhary had sent her daughter to work in some stranger’s house due to their poverty but she was sent back home when she got pregnant. Now Hema is a grandmother and what preoccupies her mind frequently is the future of her granddaughter -- her identity and security. [break]
“I want a family name for my granddaughter and justice as a citizen of this country,” says Chaudhary. “Who will take care of my granddaughter after my death? I don’t want her to be a Kamlari and face the same problems like her mother,” Chaudhary says to each government official she gets a chance to meet.
But none of them had convincing answers to address her concerns. She was part of the delegation of Kamlaris who met the country’s top officials, including President Ram Baran Yadav, Chairman of the Interim Election Council Khila Raj Regmi and Home Minister Madhav Prasad Ghimire, in the capital this week.
Republica File Photo
With no satisfactory answers forthcoming from any quarter, Chaudhary returned home on Wednesday with little hope and few expectations.
Chaudhary is not alone in facing hardship under the age-old Kamlari (bonded labor) system. There are thousands of others who have been subjected to cruel torture, sexual exploitation and harassment, trafficking and disappearance and even death under suspicious circumstances.
Despite orders from the Supreme Court, the serious concern of rights activists and pressure from the international community to abolish this inhumane treatment of poor people, the Kamlari system still haunts the Tharu community.
“Forget about finding a solution and ending this system, the government does not even have proper data on Kamlaris currently living under such harsh conditions,” says Fakala Tharu, an advocate and a member of the committee agitating for the abolition of the Kamlari system. “The government does not have any specific mechanism to monitor and regulate the condition of Kamlaris to date.”
Since decades back, girls as young as six and seven from the Tharu community have been handed over to so-called higher caste rich landlords to work at their homes by way of paying back loans taken by their parents or grandparents. This not only flouts the basic rights of a human being, it has also deprived these young girls of their right to education.
There are more than 5,000 Tharu girls presently working as Kamlaris in various parts of the country, according to advocate Tharu.
“Most of them are working in the urban areas and very few parents know much about their children,” he says. “About 12,000 Kamlaris have already been released from different homes and are now living safer lives, but many others still live under their prison-like situation.”
In Nepal, there are various acts and regulations against child labor and human trafficking, but their implementation is very weak, according to rights activists. Kamaiya Labor (Prohibition) Act 2002, Children’s Act 1992, Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 2000 and Human Trafficking and Transportation Act 2007 are some of the legislative measures that prohibit child labor and the entire Kamlari system.
“But Kamlaris are still under huge pressure of work, with no love or proper care,” says Krishna Chaudhary, a 20-year-old Kamlari who was sent to work at a landlord’s house at the age of six and was released in 2009.
“Many rich and cultured families and top-ranking individuals have kept Kamlaris in their homes,” says Krishna, who aspires to become a lawyer and fight for justice for girls who have been living this inhumane life. “Many of these girls are not only forced to live a hard life within the four walls of the landlord’s home with an enormous amount of household chores, they are also sexually abused by the men in the house.”
“I was compelled to witness those hell-like days because of my parents’ innocence and poverty, but now it’s time to think seriously about bringing all the girls out of those ‘hellish homes’,” she says.
In the past it used to be a matter of pride to send send one’s young daughters to work as Kamlari in landlords’ houses. During the Maghi festival, girls were sold into this virtual slavery despite restrictions from rights activists and action by law enforcement units.
Since the introduction of legal provisions to abolish the system, thousands of Kamlaris have been rescued and put in makeshift shelters. But questions still remain about those meted out severe injustice in the form of sexual exploitation and death under suspicious circumstances; they are yet to be provided necessary legal services, says advocate Tharu.
Reports say that seven Kamlari girls have been found dead, more than a dozen single mothers are languishing without any support, 27 cases have been registered against sexual exploitation and many more are still out of touch with their families.
It is the responsibility of the government to provide justice to the victims and the families of the deceased but the government seems negligent over the issue as these instances involve people from so-called high caste and rich families, according to former lawmaker Sukdaiya Chaudhari.
And advocate Tharu says, “We hardly register cases against the accused but even if the accused are proved guilty, they are released through political influence or the power of money.”
Interim Election Council Chairman Regmi, during a meeting with the delegation of Kamlaris this week, said that the government was ready to address all the problems that Kamlaris have been facing, according to Tharu. Regmi told the delegation that the government would look into ways to rehabilitate the victims, provide them scholarships and set up a separate fund for the welfare of Kamlari girls. “I will talk to the ministries concerned to resolve the problems after identifying the root causes,” Tharu quoted Regmi as saying.
For Hema Chaudhary, such assurances have been a regular affair as various government and political party leaders have time and again ‘guaranteed’ to abolish this system. But such abolition is still a long way off.
For now, Hema is fighting for the identity of her granddaughter Simran and many other children who have been deprived of their identity for lack of their fathers’ names.
Law enforcement units are ignorant of cases related to Kamlaris
Sukdaiya Chaudhary, ex-lawmaker and member of the Agitation Committee for Abolition of the Kamlari System
What was the outcome of the recent meeting between the delegation and government officials and political parties?
There have been many movements to abolish this Kamlari system, but nothing has happened due to the negligent behavior of government officials and the ignorance of the political parties. Therefore, we once again came to the capital to make a final attempt to solve our problems. If our demands are not met, we will have no option but to wage a nationwide protest. As a former Kamlari myself, I do understand and appreciate the problems of the Kamlaris, who are living a hard life of bonded labor. Though nothing has happened till now, we still believe and hope that the stakeholders would soon address our problems.
What were the major demands put forth by the Kamlaris to the President, the Chairman of IEC, ministers and political leaders?
Our demands are totally based on justice. We have presented a seven-point demand to the government. We demand strict punishment of Yubaraj Poudel, Shankar Adhikari and Balkrishna Shah - the landlords accused of murdering Kamlaris Srijana Chaudhary and Meghi Chaudhary. The families of the deceased must be provided proper compensation and a high-level committee must be formed to investigate these cases. Initiative must be taken to rescue Kamlaris and those keeping Kamlaris need to be punished. And also, a scholarship fund and training facilities should be augmented, the rescued Kamlaris should be provided different identity cards and a separate provision should be incorporated in the constitution to abolish this system.
Do you think these demands will be fulfilled?
These are very common demands from our side. It is now the responsibility of the government and other stakeholders to address them. I am quite optimistic. However, it definitely a difficult task as it is highly-placed police officials, political leaders, brokers and rich feudal elements who are keeping Kamlaris. The government can solve the problem if it handles it with sincerity.
What do you think are the major challenges to solving these problems?
The government should first find out the exact number of Kamlaris and their actual situation in various parts of the country. No one has factual records on Kamlaris. Law enforcement units are ignorant of cases related to Kamlaris. Strong directives should be issued to local level government authorities. Most importantly, the accused in the murder of different Kamlaris are to be prosecuted without delay. In Kathmandu, Kamlaris are brought in quietly in non-transparent ways so that the police and other government agencies would not suspect their movements.
Don’t you think there are weaknesses on the part of the parents of Kamlaris?
Yes, I have to accept that fact as well. Some parents do send their daughters to work as Kamlaris for financial gain. But sending these girls to work at strangers’ homes has led to many cases of domestic violence and they have even been trafficked into the flesh trade. We have tried to identify those parents who send their daughters as Kamlaris and have even registered cases against them.
Kamaiya - Fact File
• Kamaiya is a traditional system of bonded labor practiced mostly in southern parts of Nepal. The people affected are also called Kamaiya or Kamlari.
• Various forms of forced labor and bondsman systems existed since the 17th century. People without land or work could get loans from landowners allowing them to sustain a minimum livelihood. In exchange for this, they had to live and work on the landowner’s land as quasi slaves. Exorbitant interests were charged, and whole families were forced into slave labor for years and even generations, bonded by indebtedness to the landowner and selling of their labor in lieu of the loans taken.
• Following the eradication of malaria in the Tarai region in the 1950-60s, the large influx of hill migrants marginalized the traditionally landowning Tharu people by occupying their lands. While the Tharus had no records of the land they were cultivating, the settlers registered the land in their names, forcing the Tharus to work as agricultural laborers. The customary practice of obtaining a “helping hand for family business” was gradually replaced by the forced labor system called Kamaiya, which in Tharu parlance is tantamount to hardworking hired farm labor. The Kamaiya system existed in particular in western Nepal and affects especially the Tharu people and Dalits.
• In its modern form, girls and young women are sold by their parents into indentured servitude under contract for periods of one year with richer, higher-caste buyers, generally from outside their villages. In 2006, the Supreme Court of Nepal affirmed that this practice known as Kamlari is illegal.
Abolition
• Increasing protests against the Kamaiya system, organized by the “Kamaiya movement”, led to its abolition in 2000. On 17 July that year, the Government of Nepal announced the Kamaiya system banned, and declared all Kamaiyas freed and their debts cancelled. Although most Kamaiya families were freed, the system has persisted. Many Kamaiyas were evicted by their former landlords and released into poverty without any support. Others received land that was unproductive.
• To alleviate the poverty of the affected people - the main cause of the system - rehabilitation and distribution of land were promised to ex-Kamaiya families. To put action behind the attempts to discuss the land issue with the government, the ex-Kamaiyas started occupying land in Kailali and Bardiya districts in the winter of 2005-06. But a decade after being emancipated, the freed Kamaiyas are forced to live a very difficult life as the government has still not fulfilled its promises of providing proper rehabilitation and a relief package.
Source: Agencies/Wikipedia
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