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Nepal schools project

Protecting Nepalese Children from Bonded Labour through Education

"As Kamaiya, we were remote controlled, if our landlord said go and eat, we ate, if he said, stop eating and work, we worked. Everyday was like this".

These are the words of Kancchu Tharu who was passed down debt bondage from his father who, in turn, 'inherited' the debt from his father. Kamaiya is a traditional system of bonded labour in the western plains of Nepal affecting mosly the indigenous Tharu community. Kancchu's family became bonded after his grandfather was unable to pay a government imposed land tax. A landlord offered to pay on his behalf if he agreed to sign over his land; thus leaving Kancchu's grandfather to work as a sharecropper on his own land. Eventually he had to borrow increasing amounts of money from his landlord to feed his family.

This is the story of many people in 'lower' castes in Nepal and although bonded labour was finally prohibited in Nepal in 2002 many thousands of 'liberated' former bonded labourers remain trapped in slavery today due to widespread discrimination that concedes limited employment alternatives.

To break this cycle of discrimination and poverty, Anti-Slavery International, in association with our local partner organisations, INSEC and BASE, has set up a new project to free children in Nepal from bonded labour through education. The aim of the project is to guarantee free and accessible education for all children of former bonded labourers and to eradicate the discrimination that these children suffer at school.

Educational progress is one of the most effective methods of weakening the structures that preserve the practice of bonded labour and discrimination which prevails despite the existence of prohibitive legislation. In the long term, education will help to prevent children entering bonded labour as adults, offering improved economic and social opportunities, and income for their families as they learn vocational skills.

Since the project started last year, we have opened 20 schools in ten districts of Nepal, where over 400 children have been given basic education to bring them up to the standard they need to enrol in state schools.

However, getting children to enrol in schools is, in some ways, merely the first hurdle and often this alone is not enough to keep them there. Families can seldom afford books, stationary, uniforms and other school essentials. We found that these trivial things that we might take for granted, such as the lack of a uniform or not being able to afford a daily meal at school can be major factors in drop-out and attendance rates, and can also greatly affect the enthusiasm of children for attending school. We try to ensure that these basic needs are met by helping the children gain scholarships where possible and offering financial support to families.

For children over 14 years of age, we will provide evening vocational training courses to enable them to gain practical skills that will increase the employment opportunities open to them and reduce their dependency on their landlords. So far 100 children have already been enrolled for these courses. They will start this autumn.

We're also engaged in raising awareness among the local authorities and communities affected by bonded labour areas to ensure that they respect the rights of children and work together to combat discrimination against them. Additionally, we try to ensure that parents are conscious of the impact of not sending their children to school and conversely the advantages a school education can offer their family.