The world of ‘massage parlours’ is one shrouded in suspicion. These dark and dank spaces smell of sin. One anticipates stories of suffering, already exposed by the media, but seldom does one encounter a brave survivor. People here are masked in their roles as servers. Behind this guise lies a history of suffering barely within our power to conceive.

Eighteen-year-old Nima (name changed) has battled this world, and survived it. She is hesitant to give details, but recalls the day when she came to the Capital from her home in Sindhupalchok. A woman she used to call her aunt brought her here, selling typical dreams of making a better living. Nima’s aunt fed her, bought her fancy city clothes and helped her adjust to her new surroundings. She obviously loved it in the beginning.Most stories of exploitation have a deeper history of suffering, and Nima’s is a chest full: at the tender age of eight, Nima was recruited as a guerrilla in the People’s Liberation Army. Her strong desire to avenge the deaths of her father and brother—both of whom were recruited by force and killed as pawns by the Nepal Army—won her over.

By the time she was 10, her small hands were given a gun. She wandered through the jungles with Maoist combatants searching for something unknown, but with a vision of revenge. But it slowly dawned upon her that her efforts were going nowhere. The insurgency ended in 2006 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and Nima returned home.

Back home, she found her mother absconded, and her younger sisters abandoned. “I was ready to die as I had nothing to live for. But, then I thought of my two younger sisters and wanted to live for them,” says Nima, who swung from being a guerrilla to a mother in such a short time. She then came to the Capital in search of work to sustain her sisters and herself.

“After staying for some days at Aunty’s home, she suggested that I work in the massage parlour, where I could earn by performing some chores.”

And like all deceptive beginnings, her initial days at the parlour started with kind treatment.  “The owner of the parlour only made me clean the floor and was so nice to me, but my fellow workers kept warning about dangerous consequences. I thought they were jealous of the owner’s favouritism towards me, and so I ignored their words.”

One day, her owner gave her a packet and asked her to massage a guy in the room.

“I had no choice but to obey. I thought the packet contained body oil for the massage, but when the client locked the room, I discovered it was a condom.”

Nima was raped by the client. She stayed in the room for an hour in a bleeding state, wondering how she could face her aunt. She howled out loud with pain, but the place was silent. Later, she mustered what courage she could and went home to her aunt. The aunt showed no surprise and told Nima matter-of-factly that she had to work at the parlour to make her living.

“My mind was completely numb—I couldn’t think of any alternatives, and so I went back to the parlour and became a sex worker.”

At the parlour, she was forced to work at odd hours and even when she was unwell.

“I was not permitted to go for a health check-up; also, I was underpaid and forced to do some tasks despite my will. I would drink, smoke and inhale narcotics to forget and suppress my pain.”

In October 2009, Nima came in contact with a field worker from Rakshya Nepal (RN)—an NGO for social networking, care and support for female sex workers and their children.

“It was difficult for Nima to overcome the trauma,” says Menuka Thapa, chairperson of RN. “But after regular counselling from the organisation, she slowly recovered her confidence.”

Nima is now studying in grade seven in her village. She also runs a tailor shop supported by RN at her house, and is successfully taking care of her younger sisters—her youngest sister has been provided with schooling facilities as well.

“The suffering I have faced in my life was all due to ignorance. In the future, I want to be a teacher and educate the girls of my village so they will not be exploited as I have been,” says Nima.

Like Nima, there are a total of 70,000 internally displaced people from the decade-long armed conflict. Fifty percent are reported to be women and girls who come to the Capital in search of better lives.

Nima’s tumultuous life has found some peace. One wonders what wounds remain unhealed, but hopes for the best. Like Nima, there are 115 other girls who have been rehabilitated by Rakshya Nepal since its inception in 2004. But thousands remain unheard and unknown, possibly, inside the dimly-lit rooms of the brothels that pose as massage parlours.

Source: The Kathmandu Post (Dec. 18, 2010)

It was a cold winter morning on Saturday last week. Kathmanduites were snuggling up in their warm quilts when eleven-year-old Bal Kumari Manadhar had finished moulding her 50th brick at a brick kiln located a few kilometres away in Bhaktapur.

For Bal Kumari, the day starts at 4 am and goes well beyond 7 in the evening. “She wakes up to prepare lunch and then goes to prepare bricks,” said her grandfather, Shyam Manandhar, who has been working at the brick kiln himself for the last 27 years. “We workers get paid fifty paisa per brick while the brick owners sell each brick for six to eight rupees.”A fourth grader at the local school in Khaniyapuri village in Ramechhap district, Bal Kumari has been working at the Bhaktapur-based Agni Brick Kiln for the past 25 days to provide for her family. Her hands are rough and her feet worn hard by the hours spent mixing clay soil, moulding bricks and cutting brick edges.

Bal Kumari first came to the Capital to support her family. At that time, she was here to look after her cousin (daughter of her maternal uncle). “I used to watch my elders work all day with the clay and prepare bricks,” she said, adding, “The observations throughout the early years taught me the skills required to work now.”

Bal Kumari had to leave school for work. “I will only be visiting school to attend the final exams as I am away working here,” she said. According to her calculations, she will earn about Rs 16,000 this season. “My family has already taken Rs 8,000 in advance and I will be giving them the remaning amount by the end of this season.” she added.

Every winter, hundreds of children her age enter the Capital to earn additional income for their families who work in different brick kilns operating in and around valley. Most of the families have no choice but to send or bring their children to work. There are thousands of children like Balkumari, working day and night making bricks to meet the increasing demand of city dwellers to construct multi-storied buildings owing to the rise in urbanisation.

At the start of the winter season (first week of December to April end), most workers and their children stay in temporary tented houses at the brick making factory’s yard. The families, particularly the rural folks, migrating from remote districts outside the valley stay for almost six months during winter to make a living.

Most school-going children, particularly from Ramechhap, Kavre, Dolakha and Sindupalchowk, are brought to the Capital to work during winter. The students, like Bal Kumari, return to their respective schools only to give their final exams. For the rest of the year, they help dig the sand needed to make the bricks, mix it with water and mud and pour it into a mould.

The molded sand is then left to dry out in the field for a couple of days after which it is fired in the brick kiln.

According to data released in 2010 by Child Development Society (CDS), about 45,000 children are working in brick kilns in and around valley. There are 64 registered brick kilns in Bhaktapur district and in each brick kiln, a minimum of 20 children work.

Similarly, a recent study on the brick kilns of Bhaktapur, Lalitpur and Kathmandu states that among 240 respondents, 54.2 percent are girls and 45.8 percent are boys. 59.6 percent are below 10 years of age, 36.6 percent belong to the age group of 11-14, and 3.7 percent are above 14. Most of them migrate temporarily to the valley from Kabhre, Ramechhap and Sarlahi districts, mainly during their winter vacation from school.

Work at the brick kiln keeps them from school and when they return to give their examination, most of them fail due to lack of preparation. It is not surprising then, that they drop out and return to the brick kiln.

Children like Bal Kumari have limited options to keep their education afloat. Organisations like CDS run open learning centres in the valley so that the children can have coaching classes. But the target thus far has gone up to covering only 300 of them. Some schools near the brick kilns also provide separate coaching classes, but they are able to cover only150 children working in the kilns.

The case of children working in the brick kilns is not new, and inaction by the local government has resulted in them being trapped in menial labour. There are only seven non-governmental organisations, with 25 seasonal classes altogether, working for children labouring in brick kilns. In Bhaktapur, there are only seven seasonal coaching classes running for elder children and four early childhood centre for the younger children. This amount of support is not sufficient considering the number of children working currently. Will Bal Kumari live her life making bricks like her grand father? “I want to continue my studies and become a teacher,” she says, while keeping busy with the clay in her hands.

Source: The Kathmandu Post (Jan 8, 2011)

Thirteen-year-old Ashiq Shrestha struggles every night to sleep. He cannot; the freezing winter of Kathmandu won’t let him. A tattered blanket and a thin mattress are not enough to ward off the chill, because he  shacks up on a Thamel footpath.

There are approximately 5,000 street children in the country for whom winter nights are a nightmare, the 2008 factsheet of Child Workers in Nepal Concerned Centre (CWIN) states. They suffer from scarcity of clothes to wear and mattresses and blankets to sleep.Ashiq and two other boys share two mattresses and a blanket provided by a foreigner, Steffrie Leo last month. “It’s already worn out and is not long enough to cover the three of us,” he shared. The children face several health problems such as sore throat, headache, common cold and chest pain during winter. They somehow manage to get medicines but the drugs do not work most often. “Unless we can keep ourselves warm, no medicine works,” sniffled the cold-stricken boy.

It is not only the chill the children must  beat. One night, when Ashiq and his friends were trying to sleep, forgetting their sorrows, a group of policemen started thrashing them. They call the policeman that they regularly encounter ‘Kaaleh Cop’. He cannot say his name but knows he bears two stars on his shoulders.

They often face the wrath of the police for ‘littering the street’. “Every night, we clear the rubbish thrown by others to spare ourselves their kicks and punches. But they never stop troubling us,” Ashiq lamented. He and his 17-year-old friend Ramesh Thapa were provided shelter by an organisation. However, they returned to the street since they were not allowed to sniff glue. Ramesh said organisations visit them regularly but once they are told of the boys’ ill health, they never turn up again.

According to the National Alliance of Organisations Working with Street Children (NAOSC), five organisations have been working for the children for the last five years, excluding organisations that are mushrooming and those  short-lived. The latter kind are unable to address the actual needs of these children.

NAOSC Treasurer Krishna Thapa said since organisations cannot work for the children in a sustained way, this causes the victims to feel that they do not need the NGOs but the NGOs need them. The issue of street children has received government attention since last year, he added. “However, there is still a lack of vision and an effective policy. The budget allocated has not benefitted the target group much.”

Thapa believes hunger and shelter are not the only needs of the children. Their psychological needs should also be addressed. “The children’s actual needs should be identified and an action plan chalked out. For this, the government should join hands with non-government organisations concerned.”

Source: The Kathmandu Post (Jan 11, 2011)

On the occasion of the 25th SAARC Charter Day, SAARC Business Association of Home-based workers (SABAH-Nepal) organised a “design competition” in knitting, stitching and weaving craft categories in the Capital on Thursday.

A total of 47 persons took part in the programme organised on the premises of SABAH-Nepal office. The programme was chaired by the country project manager of the organisation, Robin Amatya.The competition was a unique event to promote creativity, innovation and enthusiasm among home-based women workers of Nepal, organisers said.

According to Amatya, the event aimed at encouraging home-based women workers in creative designing and to foster creative design and innovation in Nepali textile crafts. SABAH-Nepal is working to bring these women to the forefront as, according to it, their immense contribution to Nepali economy has gone unseen and unrecognised.

The winner in the weaving category was Tara Karki, Sarita Maharjan bagged the first prize in stitching, while Padmini Bajracharya won in the knitting category.

The winners were given cash prizes of Rs. 5,000 each, while the 1st and 2nd runners up were given Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000 respectively.

Source: The Kathmandu Post (Dec. 17, 2010)

Despite knowing that exclusive breastfeeding is compulsory for better children and their health, many working women are not following it due to odd working hours and lack of time. In this case, express breastfeeding can be a better option, experts say.

Neeti Aryal Khanal, 31-year-old working woman, started feeding bottle-milk to her two-month old child. She also used to feed her child honey and other stuff like paste of cashew nuts, pistachios and Janma Guthi. A doctor advised her not to feed bottle-milk. However, she did not heed the doctor’s words due to of lack of time to breastfeed her child. She used to suffer from an overflow of breastmilk.

“I thought that when my child reaches six months of age I can feed her anything and that I would rid myself from hectic tasks,” said Khanal. But, when she went to Australia on a trip she met a working woman there who was express breastfeeding her child. The woman told Khanal that she used to collect milk from her breast in a clean cone and keep it in a safe place so that other family members at home could feed the milk to her child with the help of a spoon in her absence.  Khanal was impressed with this method of breastfeeding. After returning to Kathmandu, when she delivered a second child she consulted the doctor and applied the same method to her second child till six months. “My second child seems healthier than my first,” said Khanal.

Khanal is a case in point. According to the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), over 70 percent of infants below six months of age are not breastfed properly in the country due to lack of awareness among mothers. The standard of the World Health Organization (WHO) has it that all infants should be fed exclusively breastmilk for six months after their birth.

The WHO brought the concept of express breastfeeding in Nepal 15 years ago, but Nepali doctors did not promote it, said Laxmi Tamang of Aadharbhut Prasuti Sewa Kendra, an organisation working for nursing mothers.

According to Tamang, express breastfeeding can be done in two ways — either through one’s own hand or by pumping tools available at department stores.

Tamang said one should keep the milk in a hygienic place using clean tools at normal room temperature. In winter, the milk should warmed by adding warm water but one should not boil the milk, she said.

Source: The Kathmandu Post (Dec. 15, 2010)

Dalit women are increasingly becoming victims of different forms of social violence after they inter into inter-caste marriages, Dalit women said on Tuesday.

In an interaction organised by the Feminist Dalit Organisation (FEDO), Radha Dhakal Sunar of Surkhet said she had a love marriage with Bimal Rana Magar in 2006. Her mother-in-law kicked her and her husband out of the house after seven days of their marriage. They didn’t have shelter and food, she narrated. Subsequently, her husband went to India to look for jobs. However, as he was uneducated and unskilled, her husband’s hands don’t work now after he got an electric shock while working in India.

Currently, Sunar is in Kathmandu while her husband is in India. Sunar’s husband had asked his brother to take Sunar to India. However, the brother has not accepted Sunar as his sister-in-law and refused to obey his brother.

“What can I do in such a situation?” Sunar, who has two children, said.

Other Dalit women shared similar experiences at the programme.

Kamala Pariyar of Chitwan also had a love marriage with Shree Ram Lamichane in 2008. As soon as they got married, Lamichane’s family members kicked the newly-wed couple out of the house saying Pariyar belonged to an “untouchable” social group. Pariyar, her husband and their son are now living in her maternal home.

According to Durga Sob, president of  FEDO, Dalit women have become victims of social violence after they engaged in

inter-caste marriages. They have been tortured and often kicked out of the house.

Sob further said different laws have been formulated to promote inter-caste marriage, but they have failed to ensure Dalit women’s rights.

“We want effective laws from the government,” Sob added.

At the programme, Home Minister Bhim Bahadur Rawal committed to bring in effective laws. “Laws are not enough to end this kind of gender-based violence. What we need is social awareness. Women are suffering from violence due to social stigma in the name of tradition and social values and norms.”

Source: The Kathmandu Post (Dec. 8, 2010)

In May this year, the government made a big show when Nepal ratified the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as well as its Optional Protocol. The government was expected to guarantee disabled Nepali citizens their rights as dictated by the UN after the ratification. A big statement, one could say, given the nature of our government. And stories from the visually-impaired relegate this pompous statement to pure inaction in implementing the Convention.

Nineteen-year-old Manil Maharjan, a plus-two graduate, faces major challenges in getting enrolled in a university as he is partially blind. Manil had access to Braille only up to grade six and was abandoned by his school thereon. “There aren’t enough books with Braille and Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY), and I have suffered because of that,” he says. “My brothers and sisters would read aloud for me to catch up with my studies after grade seven.” School officials did not help him at all; he was made to take written tests on his own without the help of a substitute writer. But despite the indifference, he managed to score well consistently. Maharjan could have done much better in his studies had he had access to the services that a visually-impaired student is entitled to. He now wants to enroll in a university to pursue journalism. The subject is challenging enough for a visually-impaired person, but the lack of facilities creates greater hurdles for Maharjan. “I can’t go in the field and tackle crowds,” he says. “Similarly, I will not be able to use reporting tools such as cameras.” But Maharjan can still stay in office and interview people via telephone to write articles. “I would like to work for online media and do something for people like me,” he adds.

The ratification of the disability convention by Nepal is expected to bring “a paradigm shift in attitudes and approaches towards persons with disabilities.” Disabled people are not to be regarded as objects to be sympathised with, but as “active members of society with equal human rights to make decisions based on free and informed consent”.

With the convention ratified, one hopes that efforts of people like Maharjan are treated with respect. Previously, he had tried to write articles for UNICEF to publish on their website. But his tenacious efforts received no response. Such a reaction has become expectant to him; but he keeps his spirits up, and has not given up hope.

Another student who faces similar obstacles is 23-year-old Shova Gurung, who is pursuing a degree in education at Mahendra Ratna Campus in Tahachal. Gurung does not own a computer which she can use for digital-talking books, and her college does not provide them either. She thus resorts to using a recorder in class. “But recorded words from teachers are not enough. I had a desire to learn more about what was being taught in class. But what I can do? There’s neither a Braille text of the books taught, nor digital talking books. It gets tougher for us to understand the text when the teacher explains on the blackboard and through other visual media,” she says.

Gurung does not feel included in her college. Though her school years were better than Maharjan’s because she got Braille textbooks till class ten, her college life is fraught with extraordinary hurdles. She wants to pursue a career in teaching and will have to compete with normal people to be addressed as a teacher. Despite having no support, she is optimistic. “The life of a visually-impaired person like me is always full of obstacles. I have made it this far and have overcome the difficulties society places on me. I have enough strength to claim my future.”

There are about 200,000 partially sighted and 250,000 visually-impaired people in Nepal according to National Federation of the Disabled Nepal (NFDN). Among them, only 5,000 children are enrolled in schools and 1,500 are pursuing higher education. Some schools do provide textbooks in Braille but higher education institutions have no study materials in Braille at all. Birendra Raj Pokhrel of NFDN suggests the government to introduce books in DAISY format, as it is cheaper than Braille.

NGOs like the National Association of the Blind have established audio libraries in Pokhara. Similarly, Nepal Association for the Welfare of Blind established the National Braille Library in Kathmandu in March this year. These efforts provide hope, but the entire population of the visually-impaired remains yet to be reached.

The government, on the other hand, has acted minimally. It hired two visually-impaired people after the Civil Services Regulation introduced a policy of 5 percent reservation for the disabled in 2007. Similarly, a policy introduced in the budget plan in 2009—which states that persons with disability in private companies will get a 5 percent reduction in taxes for the company—is still practised. However, there has been no sign of action since it ratified the convention in May, as can be seen from the utter lack of any disabled-friendly infrastructure in public spaces.

The government agrees it hasn’t done enough to help the disabled. But what is more frightening is the candid explanation that it doesn’t have any plans to help the visually-impaired at all. Joint spokesperson at the Ministry of Education Dr. Lekhnath Paudel says that there is no monitoring for the availability of Braille books in schools and that the government has no policies for translating course books into DAISY format. Similarly, there are no plans to establish handicap-friendly libraries.

The absence of policy and inaction clearly speaks of indifference and inability to implement the UN Convention for persons living with disabilities. The ratification could soon be rendered meaningless, but people like Maharjan and Gurung continue to fight their battle and keep their spirits high to seize the dreams they are entitled to.

Source: The Kathmandu Post (Dec. 4, 2010)

Central Higher Secondary School for the Deaf, Nepal’s first school for hearing-impaired children, is in a pathetic condition owing to a financial crunch.

Of five buildings of the school established in 1966 A.D., one is in vulnerable condition. “Aged slabs of its roof have started falling. The school administration hasn’t been able to repair it,” said Principal Narayan Bhakta Shrestha.Bhakta said a new multi-storied building has to be built to replace the dilapidated building. The school is also facing shortage of buses and teachers.

Among its three old buses, one is too old to carry students and is out of use, said Shrestha, adding 26 teachers have got to teach about 400 students. There should be 45 teachers, he said. Teachers have their own tales to tell. “We are facing difficulties to teach due to the lack of signs to express abstract words,” said Usha Neupane, a Nepali teacher. More signs should be developed, she added.

The problems, according to Shrestha, are the result of the financial crunch. Though the Ministry of Education (MoE) funds salary of the teachers, it, however, does not provide money for other purposes. As the school is imparting free education up to the Plus Two level, providing for the salary alone is not enough to run it, Shrestha said. MoE Joint Spokesman Lekhnath Poudel said the ministry cannot provide more money to the school than needed for the salary.

Source: The Kathmandu Post (Dec. 3, 2010)

World Day of Prayer and Action for Children (DPAC) was marked here by organising various activities on Thursday.

On the occasion, Alliance for Peace, Education and Development-Nepal organised a children’s art workshop on peace aiming to realise the potential of children with disability in creativity and innovation.Hearing-impaired children from Kendriya Bahira Uchcha Madhyamik Vidhyalaya participated in the art workshop, where council members of Nepal Academy of Fine Arts facilitated the children to create an artwork on peace.

“I am not a good artist but I am very happy to express my inner feelings and message of peace through the medium of art,” Rajendra Prasad Panta, one of the participants of the art workshop, shared his feelings with the Post in writing.

Addressing the function, Birendra Pokhrel, president of Nepal Federation of the Disabled Nepal, said, “This art workshop has played an important role in marking the Article 30 of United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which states the rights of persons with disabilities in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport.”

Pokhrel also drew the attention of stakeholders on the fact that about 92 percent children with disabilities are out of school in Nepal and stressed the need to pay special attention for their enrollment. Kiran Manandhar, senior artist and chancellor of Nepal Art Academy, said a country cannot be labelled developed, until there is an all-round development of children with disabilities.

Source: The Kathmandu Post (Dec. 3, 2010)

Six organisations working on the issue of climate change submitted a memorandum to President Ram Baran Yadav on Wednesday urging him for action on mitigating the effects of climate change and on disaster management.

“Nepal has made numerous efforts to tackle the climate challenge. But this is not enough,” responded Yadav, adding that efforts were on to write an environment-friendly constitution.

According to Tilottam Paudel, president of Jagriti Child and Youth Concern Nepal, the memorandum stresses the need to promote plantation of Sajeevan (Jatropha carcus), a plant that absorbs carbon from the atmosphere, apart from pleading to promote organic farming and to construct bicycle tracks in cities.

Source: The Kathmandu Post (Dec. 1, 2010)