The Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation helps prevent poor families in Nepal from selling their daughters into slavery. Unable to make ends meet, many families in western Nepal have been forced to sell their daughters, some as young as six, to work far from home as bonded servants in private homes. With living conditions entirely at the discretion of their employers, these girls seldom attend school and are sometimes forced into prostitution. NOW travels to Nepal during the Maghe Sankranti holiday, when labor contractors come to the villages of the area to "buy" the children.
There, we meet the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation, which is trying to break the cycle of poverty and pain with an Enterprising Idea. They're providing desperate families with an incentive to keep their daughters: a piglet or a goat that can ultimately be sold for a sum equivalent to that of their child's labor. The organization says it has brought thousands of girls home to live with their families, but many cultural and political challenges still stand in their way. [source]
Olga's Girls - The Indentured Daughters of Nepal
Meredith May, San Francisco Chronicle, for the Pulitzer Center
NEPAL - There is a saying about daughters in Nepal: Raising a girl is like watering your neighbor’s garden.
Nepali girls are less likely than their brothers to get an education or earn an income, and in some families are considered temporary mouths to feed, as they will move in with their husband’s family at marriage.
In the country’s poorest rural villages of southwestern Nepal, there is a specific kind of discarded daughter found only among the ethnic Tharu farming families:
The kamlari.
Kamlaris are house slaves, as young as five, who toil away their childhoods cooking, cleaning and babysitting in the homes of higher caste families....
full article.
PBS program page.
Social Entrepreneuring Website at PBS
SALE OF DAUGHTERS IN NEPAL (PDF)
Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation (NYOF)
