A little piglet makes a big difference

Nepal is a traditional Hindu society, and so responsibility for all financial and family matters falls to the fathers. Many see no obvious moral or economic reason to question a generations-old practice that brings much-needed cash to feed the family. After all, most of their wives and mothers were once sold as kamlaris.

Originally, NYOF planned to give each father $100 to cover a year's lost wages and pay school expenses and fees for each girl kept at home. But many mothers objected, worrying that their husbands would spend the cash on alcohol. (Drinking is a source of recreation for many rural Nepalis.) They suggested something of longer- lasting value - a piglet or a baby goat.

One piglet doesn't provide enough income to support a girl indefinitely, so NYOF is working on microcredit programs to create another source of income and reduce the chance that financially strapped fathers will backslide in future years.

So far, there are no reports of girls being freed once, only to be sent off in subsequent years as kamlaris. In contrast, reports are filtering back to NYOF from the villages of girls running away from their employers in Katmandu and pleading with their parents to let them stay in school - stunning acts of defiance compared with the docile daughters of earlier generations.

"Going to school has been very empowering for these girls, teaching them about their rights," says Murray. "It's unlikely any girl once rescued would consent to a return to bonded slavery."

The tide is turning rapidly against the practice. The girls whose parents had accepted the piglet and the other benefits provided by NYOF - a kerosene lamp with fuel, school supplies, and uniforms - have become powerful agents of change. They have mastered many classic techniques to build local awareness: marching, speaking out, passing out leaflets, demonstrating in the square, and putting on street plays that depict tearful girls being parted from their equally tearful mothers.

During this year's festival, Pralhad Kumar Dhakal, executive director of NYOF's Nepalese partner organization, saw a large group of girls wearing school uniforms, banging on the sides of a bus that was carrying six small girls away. They refused to stop until the girls were let out the door.

But the practice is not over, and fear runs high for many young girls. While NYOF had enough funds to provide families with 500 piglets this year, it could not meet the need of an additional 172 girls who contacted NYOF at the festival and begged the group to find pigs for them, too.

For those rescued from servitude, however, the future is brighter. Twelve-year-old Rama Chandari was desperate not to be sent back for a third year as a kamlari. Rama had been sold against the wishes of her mother. Her employer had let her come home for the festival, but Rama's father agreed to bond her again, despite her mother's objections.

When the NYOF representatives presented a black piglet to the family, "Rama and her mother were all smiles," says Dhakal. Like other girls in Dang "ransomed" by NYOF over the last three years, at the end of this year's month-long Maghe Festival, Rama will return to school, instead of to the life of an indentured servant.

• For more information on this program, visit www.NYOF.org

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