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Teenage Girls With Price Tags
Despite law banning the Kamaiya (bonded labor) system, in practice it continues to survive in its offshoot--the Kamalari system
By RAGHUNATH LAMICHHANE
Thaganu Chaudhari, a resident of Sonpur VDC-9 of Dang district, worked as a domestic helper in the house of one Saphatulla Manihar Audhi in a nearby village. For the past two years she had been working in other people’s houses. She worked in Audhi’s house on condition that she would be sent to school on scholarship. There was a school near Adudhi’s house.
Audhi, who is in his 50s, lived alone in his house. As a peripatetic trader, he was out of the house most of the time. Thaganu’s parents had hoped that their daughter would get fatherly love from Audhi on account of his maturity and his business taking him out of the house frequently. In fact, they had even hoped that she would get better treatment at Audhi’s than she did at home.
But their high expectations proved utterly misplaced. Audhi started proposing sexual intercourse to 13-year-old Thaganu within a few days of her working in his house. After repeated rejections from Thaganu, he raped her. Consequently, she gave birth to a baby on Mangsir 16, 2061 BS.
In Tharu society menstruation does not draw much attention, as it would in other societies. On top of that Thaganu did not even know what menstruation really was. Only three to four months after the intercourse did she realize, from others, that she was pregnant. According to Thaganu, her master forced her to have intercourse with him regularly.
In the beginning, even Thaganu’s parents refused to believe that Audhi, who himself had grandchildren, would commit such a misdeed. Later, when Thaganu told them her ordeal herself they had to believe her. But even after knowing about her suffering, neither her parents nor her elder brother sought any legal recourse against Audhi.
Even after perpetrating such a horrible crime, Audhi continued to roam freely in the village. No one dared to raise a finger against him. When a case was filed against him recently at the District Police Office at the initiative of Friends of Helpless Children, Audhi had already absconded. Says Man Bahadur Chhetri of the organization: “As soon as he found out that we were initiating action against him, he [Audhi] took to his heels."
Chhetri adds that the possibility of nabbing Audhi is remote, as he is an Indian citizen.
Recently, the country’s Tharu community celebrated Maghi [a festival that falls on Magh 1 of the Nepali calendar] with much fanfare. The greatest festival of the Tharus, Maghi is celebrated for one whole week with much revelry. Like in the past, this Maghi was characterized by informal contractual agreements for sending children off to work as domestic helpers or Kamalaris.
In the midst of festivities, outsiders were as busy as ever searching for domestic helpers in Tharu settlements. Teenage Tharu girls, who were sent to work in other people’s houses a year ago, return home for the festival. On the occasion of Maghi, the “masters” jostle with one another and haggle with the Tharus to get the choicest servant for their money’s worth.
The decision to take in or send a Kamalari is taken only on Maghi. Generally, once the two parties enter an oral contract for one year, neither can the girl’s guardians withdraw her from the service nor can the master expel the girl from his house. However, the girl in question has no inkling about how much she is paid for her work. For teenage Tharu girls this Maghi was no different from others in the past in terms of pain of separation from their families and an uncertain future ahead.
Due to poverty it is considered normal in Tharu communities to send teenage daughters to work in other people’s houses with the hope of getting some money in return. Poverty was the main factor that forced Thaganu to work as a Kamalari. Her 10-member family has no other source of income. As they have only a small piece of land just enough to build a house, she and her family members have no choice but to work as Kamalari or do other menial labor. Currently, hundreds of Kamalaris are living in servitude.
They generally have to sleep under the staircase, eat low quality rice and yet have to do any amount and type of work without any complaint. Worse, the tendency to regard sexual exploitation of Kamalari girls as normal is steadily taking root. Says Sita Chaudhari, 17, of Sohanpur, Dang: “Had I not screamed, a master in Butwal would have looted my chastity.”
Despite all these ordeals, the girls get only “a few hundred rupees per year” for their work. There are also cases where girls work as domestic helpers just for food for themselves. According to a survey done in a few VDCs of Dang by Sathi, an organization working for the helpless, 28 Kamalaris were found to be working without any remuneration. Even then, parents who send their daughters to work as Kamalaris are yet to seriously take cognizance of the injustice their daughters are suffering and speak out against it. Chhetri of the Friends of Helpless Children opines that their way of rationalizing the malpractice as a tradition compounds the problem.
Generally, Tharu settlements in west Nepal send their girls to work as Kamalari. But the places range from big cities like Kathmandu, Biratnagar and Pokhara to villages. Moreover, in recent years Indians have also begun to take away teenage Tharu girls by offering more money. Many of them have landed in red light areas of Mumbai, says Chhetri.
Middlemen play an important role in working out deals between guardians and “masters.” They have great influence over the parents’ decision whether to send their daughters to work for others or not, and if yes for how much. For their service, the middlemen get some amount from the “masters.”
The country’s law clearly states that it’s illegal to keep Kamalaris. The Kamaiya Labor Act introduced to ban Kamaiya (bonded labor) system specifies that Kamalari is a form of bonded labor. Which means that Kamalari practice should have been abolished along with Kamaiya system on Shrawan 2, 2057 BS. But even though Kamaiyas have been emancipated, the Kamalari continues to be practiced openly. The bargain for girls seen in the Tharu settlements this Maghi attests to it.
“It is illegal to keep Kamalari; action will be taken against anyone engaging in it,” says Mankumar Shrestha, spokesperson for the Ministry of Land Reforms. But even as Shrestha made such a reassuring statement, this year's Maghi saw hundreds of cars being put on stand-by in hundreds of Tharu settlements in Banke, Bardia, Kailali, Kanchanpur and Dang in west Nepal to take away the Kamalaris.
(Courtesy: Sancharika Lekhmala)
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