National 5 (Spotlight Weekly)

Children In Hazard

The latest Gonda incident exposes how hundreds of Nepalese minors are suffering physical and sexual exploitation in Indian circuses

By SANJAYA DHAKAL

When the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) led by activist Kailash Satyarthi exposed the use of under-age girls from Nepal in the Great Roman Circus in Karnailganj, Gonda of Uttar Pradesh State of India on June 15, he blew the lid off the racket that were exploiting the minors.

“As per our information, there are 23 minor Nepalese girls working in that circus, out of which half a dozen are feared to be sexually exploited and raped,” said Gauri Pradhan, South Asian President of Global March Against Child Labor (GMACL) and president of leading child rights NGO in Nepal, Child Workers in Nepal Concerned Sector (CWIN).

On June 27 a team of Nepali officials led by district administration officer of western district of Banke Mr. Hari Pyakurel returned from Gonda along with 12 rescued girls. Rest are still missing. Most of the rescued girls have said that their relatives had made them joint the circus. One of the rescued girls Sonu Lama, 12, said that she was taken to the circus by her father and aunt three months ago. She was promised a monthly salary of US$ 20. She refused to divulge much about her life in circus.

The Indian embassy in Kathmandu has expressed that the Indian government is concerned regarding the Nepali children in Gonda circus. It further said district officials of Gonda have probed the matter thoroughly and met the two-dozen Nepalis, including minors in the circus. “They have told the district officials they are working in the circus voluntarily and that they would like to stay on in the circus. One of them has complained of sexual harassment and has filed a case under Section 376 of Indian Penal Code. The person named has been arrested,” it stated.

This is not the first time that Nepalese girls have been discovered working in hazardous conditions in Indian circuses. In April, this year, NGOs of India and Nepal rescued 29 minors from the Great Indian Circus in Kerala. The same month, Nepal police raided Asia Circus at Inaruwa in eastern Nepal and rescued 17 minors including 10 girls.

Various reports have said that there are at least 250 Nepalese minors working in circuses across India – 80 percent of them girls. Most of them are between the age of five and 14.

Pradhan believes that these children - apart from having to engage in dangerous acts like balancing swords, walking tightropes, gymnastics and several other heart-stopping acts – are also used for sexual pleasure by the circus owners. “In fact, the ultimate path for most of such girls becomes prostitution. Many girls are trafficked in the pretext of working in circus – which the illiterate parents think as some sort of charming job – but they are actually involved in prostitution,” he said.

His views are shared by Biswo Ram Khadka, the general secretary of Maiti Nepal, a leading NGO that rescues and rehabilitates Nepalese girls trafficked to Indian brothels. “The circus will keep those minors until they are small. Once they grow up and become teenagers, they are usually forced to prostitution,” he said. “In fact, in many cases where we have rescued girls from Indian brothels, we have learnt that some of them were originally taken there to work in circus.”

In Gonda incident, too, NGO activists have charged that one Nita Lama, 14, had been raped by circus owner Raja Khan. She has filed several cases at the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court Gonda district, accusing the owner of rape, bonded labor and torture. Nita managed to escape along with her mother Thuli Maya who had gone to Gonda along with NGO activists to rescue their children.

“We had come here to rescue our girls. But the owners attacked us,” Thuli Maya told the media after the incident in June 15. She said that a broker promising a decent job had taken her daughter away. She had later sought the help of NGOs to locate her daughter. She hails from Makwanpur district in central Nepal. Most of the girls working in Gonda circus come from Makwanpur district where they live poverty-stricken life. In many instances parents voluntarily give away their children to traffickers for as less as US$ 40. Once in circus, they are denied rights to go to school.

“We have found from our experiences that many such minor girls are forced to work in circus in daytime and as prostitutes at nighttime,” said Manju Tiwari of ABC-Nepal (AgroForestry, Basic Health and Cooperatives) – an NGO that has rescued a number of Nepali girls from circuses. “Last July, we rescued 38 girls from Apollo circus in Delhi. Two of the girls are still missing – one doesn’t know whether they are dead or alive,” she said.

“Apart from sex trade, thousands of Nepali children are trafficked into India to work in carpet factories in Bhadoi (Mirjapur), circus, potato farms, road construction in Shimla, forced beggary (e.g.. Banaras), domestic child labor in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, etc,” according to CWIN report.

Spokesperson of the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare Shyam Sundar Sharma says that Nepal government is working in close cooperation with NGOs and donor countries to fight the menace of girl trafficking. “As far as circuses are concerned, we do not have the exact data on how many Nepali minors are working there. But we are certain that this number is substantial,” he said.