Increasing number of young girls sold as Kamlaris go missing in Dang

For the past some years cases of Kamlaris, young girls sold as bonded slaves usually for a fixed annual sum, disappearing from the house they are employed in has seen a rise in mid-western Dang district, a report in Kantipur Daily said Wednesday.

What's more, the report said that parents of these young girls don't even file a missing person case at the local administration or police station due to fear of repercussions.

It has been more than six years that the daughter of Chaturbir Tharu of Dhorahi-2 has been missing from her employer's house in Kathmandu. However, her status has not been known despite her father desperately searching for her everywhere.

According to the report, poor people of Tharu community in the district hand over their young daughters barely in their teens to middlemen who in turn put them up as a domestic help in the houses of willing families. Through this they hope to earn some quick cash. But in most cases neither they get any money nor get their daughter back.

Chaturbir Tharu had to suffer a similar fate. Expecting a fixed annual wage in return for his daughter who he sold as Kamlari, he got a shock of his life when he heard an unpleasant news of his daughter gone missing from her employer's house.

Chaturbir had sold his 12-yr-old daughter Sharmila to Saraswati Pokharel of the same municipality in the winter of year 2002 for a fixed annual sum of 4,500. He hoped to pay up the debt of Rs 15,000 he had taken from the bank through the money. But leave alone money, he had to go in search for his daughter after he was told that she has run away from the employer's house.

"I was waiting for the money to arrive when news came that my daughter is missing," Chaturbir told Kantipur, "when I asked about the whereabouts of my daughter, the family who had employed her said she ran away and even warned me against making an issue out of it."

Chaturbir has now paid the debt he owed to the bank by selling his land and house, but he is very worried about his daughter. He believes that the middlemen who had approached him for his daughter might have sold her somewhere else or may be they are just simply lying about his daughter being missing.

According to Saraswati Pokharel, Sharmila ran away from her sister's home in Kathmandu and that she doesn't know where she has gone.

Similarly, Sita Chaudhary of Hekula-6 of the district has also gone missing from the past 6 years. She was sold as a Kamalari during a winter festival of 2002 called Maghi when most poor people from Tharu community sell their daughters for a fixed annual sum. Sita's age was only 11 at the time when she was sold.

But only five days later Sita's family had to hear an unpleasant news about their daughter going missing. The family that had taken their daughter said they would give them a piece of land in return, but that they should keep their mouth shut about the missing daughter.

"They told us that our daughter has run away. They also gave us a piece of land saying that we better not file a missing person case," Jhingu Lal Chaudhar, Sita's father, told the daily."Where should we poor people go to look for our daughter? We have mostly kept quiet about it till now."

For the past many years Tharu girls have disappeared like this after being sold as Kamlaris. But till now not even one case has been filed at the district administration or the police.

Fakala Tharu of Friends of Neglected Children, an NGO which works in this sector, said there are dozens of such cases in Dang district.

"The middlemen buy and sometimes even threaten poor parents into keeping quiet about their missing daughters so as to suppress the case. We have uncovered many such cases in the district during our investigation," Thauru said. nepalnews.com Nov 12 08