Efforts to free thousands of enslaved girls in Nepal and get them into school need more funding and less government bureaucracy, activists say.
Since the year 2000, more than 11,000 Kamlaris, girls committed to indentured servitude by their parents, have been rescued. But without financial support, those freed remain impoverished and some say they are forced to consider returning to work as Kamlaris.
“Many of my friends are now planning to resume their life as Kamlaris and this really worries me,” 20-year-old Urmila Chaudhary, an ex-Kamlari, told IRIN.
She was barely six when her parents sold her to work in a rich household in Kathmandu. In 2007, after 12 years of servitude, the Nepalese Youth Foundation (NYOF) rescued her.
Though the government has a budget of nearly $2.3 million for the education and vocational training of freed Kamlari girls in 2011, most of the funds remain unspent, activists say.
The budget allocation was a political move and a form of window-dressing, said NYOF’s Som Paneru said. He explained that the money is tied up in red tape, with officials often blaming each other for inaction over the former Kamlaris.
In 2009, the government had a budget of nearly $1.6 million for 7,000 girls but not even $150,000 was spent. The rest of the money was frozen by the end of fiscal year 2010, according to NYOF. The NGO fears the same will happen in 2011.
Read more of the story here at the IRIN news service:
NEPAL: No clear route out of servitude for indentured girls
