Aid worker helps free 2,000 Nepalese slave girls

AN Irish aid worker has played a leading role in freeing almost 2,000 girls kept in bonded labour, a form of slavery still widely practiced in parts of Nepal.

Donal Keane, originally from Mitchelstown, Co Cork, was in London this week to be saluted by Plan, the organisation he has worked with for the past 25 years.

With him to collect the Global Plan Award was 17-year-old Bishnu, who was sent to work as a servant girl by her impoverished parents five years ago when Plan launched its rescue project.

Mr Keane, Plan International’s country director in Napal, said he was delighted to be able to show how well Bishnu had progressed since she was rescued.

“We are in the process of rescuing a further 4,500 girls in two districts we have identified and are working with other non-governmental agencies because we can’t do it on our own,” Mr Keane said.

Bishnu, who was rescued about three years ago, spent almost two years working from 4am to 10pm seven days a week.

She is now back in education and hopes to become a lawyer and campaign against the bonded labour system – which involves slave labour in repayment of a debt.

Mr Keane, who is based in Katmandu, said the girls come from extremely poor families in western and southern Napal, where they are often seen as little more than a drain on the families’ income and sold out of financial desperation for around $20 (€15) a year.

Under the Kamalari system, girls like Bishnu are sent to work as domestic servants in the houses of those richer than them, usually higher-cast landowners, business people or civil servants.

“Every year they have the Maghi Festival, which is celebrated in mid-January and it is then that the better off people come and look at the girls and make a deal with their parents.”

The girls are usually around eight or nine years old when they are sent to work. They are often taken far away from their communities to different parts of the country where they don’t speak the same language.

Alone and without family or community support, they are vulnerable to all sorts of harm, including physical violenceand sexual abuse.

Some have been trafficked into brothels in India through open borders where identity cards are not checked and no questions are asked.

Mr Keane said Plan was working to dismantle the Kamalari system on a number of fronts.

“In addition to rescuing and rehabilitating these girls, we help them get back into school or provide alternative education support. We give them training in a trade and support them in starting their own businesses,” he said.

Mr Keane said they also supported parents of the girls so that they could earn a decent living for their families and do not have to send their daughters to work. The charity also runs awareness campaigns from village to national level.

Plan estimates that between 10,000 to 12,000 girls are working as domestic servants under the Kamalari system.