The plight of kids from Nepal has made international headlines recently with the U.K.’s leading tabloid newspaper revealing how some children are being transported to Britain to work as household slaves or servants.
The shocking investigation by The Sun reveals how unscrupulous gangs are targeting kids on the streets of Nepal and offering to sell them to UK-based families for just £5,250.
The newspaper’s undercover team was offered boys and girls as young as ten by one gang selling Nepalese refugees and was told by one man ‘Take a Nepalese to England. They are good people. They are good at doing housework and they’ve very good cooks. No one is going to come after you’, according to the article.
As disturbing as this news is, in this guest blog post we want to tell you about how one non-profit organisation is raising funds to prevent another practice that goes on TODAY in some areas of Nepal.
It’s not the same thing as trafficking kids to work as slaves in England – but it is about child slavery all the same.
Kamlari girls are sold into a life of indentured servitude to a master who they must obey at all costs. She’ll clean, cook, fetch water, do the laundry and whatever else is demanded of her – and more than likely she will not go to school.
I’m sure you’ve heard about it?
Although the Kamlari practice has been ‘cleaned up’ to a certain extent over the last few years, it still does go on. Officially it’s outlawed as a ban came into force in 2006, but on the 10-year anniversary of that ban, it still does happen.
Sometimes girls as young as six are sold by their parents (who are trapped in a life of poverty and are desperate for money) to a master who then ‘owns’ her for the following years. In many cases, she’ll be exposed to violence and abuse. When she gets a little older, she also faces the threat of being sold into prostitution when he master wants to trade in her for a young girl.
That’s why a non-profit organisation called Open Circles Foundation (based in the Netherlands) has partnered with international award-winning charity Room to Read to help support Kamlari girls and get them access to education.
“Every year we join forces with like-minded charities to raise funds for much-needed causes all over the world – and our 2016 is called Save a Girl,” says Open Circles Foundation co-founder Nisandeh Neta.
“The crowdfunding campaign will be live until April 21st and we need to get the word out to as many people as possible so we get more support for the girls.
“So far we have had major support and I thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for the €55,000 raised thus far – we need to do more and fast.”
