I want to study more...

Girls sent away from home to work as domestic servants are being helped to return to their families and continue their education by a Plan project in Nepal.

The tradition of sending daughters to serve in the house of a family’s landlord is a deeply rooted problem in Dang District in Nepal’s Mid-Western Development Region. Shanti, now 14, was sent to work as a kamalari (servant girl), when she was just nine years old.

The scarcity of economic opportunities and the lack of access to education make this practice a common one. In fact, there are hundreds of girls who, like Shanti, have their childhood curtailed by being sent into service.

Shanti, however, was lucky: she has now returned home and started to study, with support from Plan's Kamalari Abolition Project and Society Welfare Action Nepal. Project staff convinced her father to bring her home and then helped admit her to school.

Shanti says of her experiences, “I was working as a kamalari in Butwal. It takes about four hours by bus to get there from here. I worked there for three years. I used to collect grass, wash clothes, and clean the home. I had to do all the household work, whatever the landlord ordered.

“My parents told me to go, and others like me also were going to work. My parents used to get some money each year. They said it's our culture to send daughters to others’ houses for work. Then my father brought me home.

“Now I study in school, in class 2. I want to study some more and help my parents at home.”

The project was launched in 2005 with the aim of returning kamalari to their own homes by raising awareness and by helping parents earn a livelihood. Nearly one thousand girls have been rescued and are now receiving an education with help from Plan’s Girl’s Fund.

Shanti’s parents want her to continue to go to school; participating in several project activities have made them realise the value of an education, and that sending Shanti to work in someone else’s house at such a young age was a bad decision. Her father says, "From now on, I will never send anyone at any cost."