Desperate Girls

The Badi Girls

Between 7,000 and 12,000 young girls, aged 9-16, are trafficked each year from Nepal; mainly to India. According to Nepal Monitor/On line journal, 2007, there are more than 200,000 Nepali girls in Indian brothels.

The Dalits(untouchables) are the lowest level in Hindu society, and the Badi community, in Western Nepal, are the lowest of the low. As a displaced hungry people group the Badi community has made sexual subservience a way of life. Young girls from this group “serve” other groups. This has become a tradition and means of livelihood. Many girls, even when they are unwilling, are forced to serve as sex slaves. Family members knowingly sell their daughters to traffickers.

Though prostitution is illegal in Nepal, the industry reportedly has links with highly ranked officials and political leaders. Large groups of girls are taken across the border with many police and government officials being in collusion with traffickers and brothel owners.

Traffickers and related criminals are often protected by political parties, and if arrested, are freed using political power. As a result, there is an underlying distrust of police that has led people not to file cases against traffickers.

Domestic action involves activities of NGO’s and other volunteer groups. These groups are playing a major role to address girl-trafficking and sex slaves issues. Some NGO’s are playing a very important role to improve the situation. From creating social awareness to rescuing and rehabilitation, they are providing services (and relief) to those that need it the most – the likely victims as well as the rescued ones. The Lighthouse foundation is one of these.

*See Chandra Kala’s story on this blog site.

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Wet Monday


The internet is not working ; as is common here.  So I’ll do this on Word and put on the blog if we get connected again.  It has rained here every day, and getting to the main road down our lane is quite an adventure.  Great potholes full of water, bikes and taxies spraying up water as they pass by, and very few dry spots to put our feet.  Yesterday, I had my second class for “Newborn Care”.  Six different ladies turned up, and only four from the first class.  So I had to go over the same ground again.  I have a brilliant little interpreter.  She has only been a Christian for one year.  She remembered everything I had said at the first class, and she almost did it all by herself.  She is so adorable.   All our team members are in various places doing what they came to do.  Margaret’s cooking classes are a big hit.  I have my training today between 4 and 6p.m.   Yesterday, when we arrived at he hostle, all the women we brought here from India were there, all smiles and cuddles.   The oldest one, 27, looks so much older than she looks, but at that age she could have been  in India for at least 13 years.  How anyone survives that is beyond us.  But seeing our beautiful little girls here in their school uniforms, being educated, even learning to play the violin, is very heartwarming.

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