A home in Makwanpur

In a previous post I reported on how one of our teams last month intercepted a child trafficking agent with nine children who was on his way to The Rambo Circus in India. The agent is now in custody while the children are staying at our Godawari refuge. The mother of one of the children has since left her home to find work in Kathmandu but it's more likely that she is under pressure from the agent's family to help get him off the hook. Meanwhile the siblings of the child that we rescued have been placed with their maternal uncle. Our Programme Coordinator in Hetauda has just been to visit the uncle's home in trafficking-prone Makwanpur District and sent me the adjacent picture. Following that visit we have agreed to admit the two youngest sisters, aged 5 and 6, to the Godwari refuge. So the arrest of that agent last month has led to not just nine extra children to care for but now eleven.

This is one of the greatest underlying problems in our work against child trafficking; the abyss of poverty that child survivors or potential victims originate from.

A home in Butwal

It's coming up to the Dashain festival, a time for family reunions and one occasion in the year when we endeavour to get our refuge children back to stay with relatives, including parents, for some semblance of family life. Today my colleague Gunraj Gurung visited the home in Butwal of one of the boys at the Bhairahawa "White House" refuge to check that all was in order for this temporary reunification. The house is pictured right.

Inside the house Gunraj found the boy's mother lying in some kind of a stupor. A neighbour told him that her husband had died eight months ago. No one had advised the organisation. So her son, who was of course in ignorance of this, would have had the most traumatic of returns instead of a happy festival. Gunraj also found at the house the boy's sister dressed in filthy clothes. He has asked if we can admit her to our refuge and I have agreed.

So often organisations like ours can be criticised for providing "institutional care" for children who would surely be better off with their families. Those dewy-eyed critics can't have had much exposure to the downright misery that goes with rural poverty in Nepal.

Seasonal visitors

The birdlife of my garden and continues to fascinate. Considering how close I live to central Kathmandu it's amazing what passes through. The other day I had a white-throated kingfisher in one of the trees but it seemed even less willing to pose for a photograph than Shankar Basnet (see my previous post). Other recent arrivals have been grey-headed myna birds which are seasonal visitors that have descended in flocks to feast on the nectar in the flowering shrubs just outside my study window.

This afternoon I went up to visit The Esther Benjamins Trust's art workshop in Godawari to see how recently arrived volunteer artist Margaret Fehn was getting along. Under her supervision a couple of girls were engaged in painting a still life of flowers, with one of them, Bunnu, creating a very lively interpretation. Next door Rina was working on a butterfly mosaic based upon a photo that I took in my garden a couple of weeks ago. Meanwhile in another room girls were busy painting exquisite figurines of village women that they had designed.

Tomorrow three more volunteers will join us, Jane McKears, Olwyn Cupid and Jill Hamilton. Their arrival is very timely on the eve of the main Hindu festival of Dashain next month when those kids at our refuge who have absolutely no family members to go to will need some spoiling.

The Thinker

Shankar Basnet, (alleged) child trafficking agent, has now been charged and is awaiting trial. Apparently he is now protesting that he doesn't even know the girl who has given evidence against him. So we'll have to strengthen our case by gathering further evidence against him however he's probably preparing the way for a longer sentence for himself by not pleading guilty. Today I was sent a picture of Basnet, wearing handcuffs and not looking terribly happy in a pose that is rather reminiscent of a Rodin sculpture. By the look of it I am not sure that my colleague, Binod Bhujel, had the subject's full consent before taking the photo.

Meanwhile, the report issued by the Nepal Central Child Welfare Board last week on the state of Nepalese circus children (based loosely upon our work) has received publicity right around the world. Yesterday its publication in Australian papers led to my giving interviews to two Australian radio stations. You can hear my broadcast on Radio Australia through this link:

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/programguide/stories/200809/s2371567.htm

Sadly, because of the editing of a non-commercial radio station, the report sounds more upbeat than it ought to. I made it clear that the biggest obstacle to future success wasn't lack of commitment or organisation but the economic struggle between us as a charity (who have to scrabble around for what funds we can get) and the traffickers who have plenty of ill-gotten financial gains to draw upon. We may yet fail solely because of this financial imbalance.

A circus owner speaks out

Last week, for the first time, I received an e mail from a circus owner in India. Sujit Dilip of The Rambo Circus, India's second largest, wrote to me taking exception to our negative comments about his circus that appeared recently on the Trust's website. This followed our arrest of child trafficking agent Kirta Tamang who was on his way to the Rambo Circus last month with nine Nepalese minors. Mr Dilip has asserted that his is a good circus that looks after everyone very well and he has invited me to visit the circus to find out for myself.

From what I can gather, based upon intelligence gleaned from returnees, the Rambo Circus is one of the better circuses in India, employing overseas artists (including British ones) and paying local and Nepali performers for their services. However, there is still the problem of its use of performers who found their way to the circus through having been trafficked to enter employment on the basis of illegal contracts. On top of that, although Mr Dilip advised me this morning that his performers receive proper education and training within the circus, he will have been preventing children from receiving the full education that their peers outside the circus receive. A full education is a fundamental human right. In doing so he is also denying the children a future for when after the circus is finished with them.

That said, Mr Dilip is clearly not a villain as per some of the other circus owners and I will take up his offer to pay him a visit. Back in 2003 we tried to persuade the circus owners of the time to change their ways and begin operating legally and after their non-compliance we began the process of raids in 2004. Maybe now at least one circus owner is ready to move in the right direction and that is to be encouraged. Perhaps Mr Dilip can lead the way.

The Times of London, 20th September

The Times published this article on the situation of circus children yesterday:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4790779.ece?Submitted=true

Success for Maya

Three years ago I took a very controversial - and in some quarters highly unpopular - decision to relocate the children who were in the care of The Esther Benjamins Trust from rural Bhairahawa in the southwest of the country to Kathmandu. Although this increased our running costs significantly, my reasoning was that the transfer was very much in the best interests of the children, presenting them with opportunities that they would not otherwise enjoy in the comparative backwoods of Rupendehi District.

Since then the children's academic progress has improved dramatically but on top of that, three athletic kids, two boys and a girl, attend daily training at the National Stadium before going to school. The boys, Aman and Bijay, are now number one and two in gymnastics in Nepal, while the girl, Maya, has become an accomplished distance runner. All are former circus children.

Today Maya came first in an inter school running tournament, completing 3km in 13 minutes 25 seconds. She picked up a medal, a certificate and 3000 rupees (about £25) the latter equating to almost a month's wages in Nepal for an adult and certainly more than the monthly income of her impoverished father. Maya is such a self-effacing little girl that this will come as a great boost to her growing confidence. She's not good at smiling for the camera though, a common trait in Nepalese people who seem to spend all of the rest of their time smiling.