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.

Rule of the mob

When I first visited Nepal back in late 1999 I was advised during the course of a car journey what the best approach was in the event of the vehicle being involved in an accident that led to injury or fatality. It was to run and to run like blazes. For in Nepal a mob of enraged locals forms at the drop of a hat and, irrespective of who might have been at fault, one's life is at risk.

In today's Himalayan Times I read of an incident of similar mob justice yesterday in Uttar Pradesh, the lawless state (which the Indian circuses love to operate in) just across the border. Two men went took a mobile phone recharging coupon from a shopkeeper without paying for it; when he protested they shot him dead. They made off on motorcycles but a mob of villagers went after them, eventually felling them through a barrage of stones. Once grounded they were beaten to death and their motorcycles were set on fire. Without the slightest hint of irony The Himalayan Times reported that their bodies were about to be burned but that "timely intervention" by the police prevented that from happening.

There was an instance of attempted mob rule yesterday that impacted upon our staff in Hetauda, south Nepal. For most of this week our staff members have very courageously been trying to press for the charging of an (alleged) child trafficker, Shankar Basnet. Yesterday no fewer than 100 people who were supporting the agent blocked our staff's access to the police station and the Deputy Superintendent of Police was loath to proceed with the case. Following intervention last evening by Shailaja, our local Director, who spoke with the local inspector the case was finally filed at the District Court today.

If Basnet is convicted he faces a 20 year prison sentence. This has been nice news for us to end the week on.

A day of frustration

All the ducks were in a row by lunchtime today, ready for our raid on a circus in the south of India. Paperwork had been prepared, flights booked, media alerted....and then at 1.30 p.m. Kelvin Symon of ChildLine India Foundation phoned me to say that the circus had moved location. So the trip was off, postponed until the circus arrives at its next location in early October. My expectations of a major success were thwarted, at least for now. The most I could do was revisit Interpol in Kathmandu this afternoon and present the paperwork that should be enough for the circus owner to be extradited to Nepal to face trafficking charges in the very near future.

Meanwhile in Hetauda, there has been apparent stonewalling on the part of the police in the pursuit of the case against alleged trafficking agent Shankar Basnet who was picked up by our field team on Monday evening. Statements had been taken against him from a witness who was trafficked by him to end up being allegedly raped at the circus. The case should have been lodged within one day of this at the District Court and all seemed done and dusted to us. Four days later we were appalled to learn that the police have still done nothing and we gather that the girl is being summoned to the police station again tomorrow. In short she is being put under a great deal of mental pressure (perhaps in the hope that she will retract her statement). The pressure is exacerbated by the incident having attracted the attention of local media who have been at the police station. Moreover Basnet's idiot neighbours have been adding to the intimidation by protesting at the station - trafficking really is something that can involve conspiracy and collaboration by whole communities.

Tomorrow we will take firm action to protect this girl who has been so courageous as to give evidence before her trafficker and we'll ensure that her will doesn't break under this unacceptable pressure. The local police are effectively treating her like a criminal and they should be ashamed of themselves as police officers and as men.

Faces on a hillside

This afternoon I went once again to the Nepal office of Interpol in Kathmandu where I had a very useful discussion with Superintendent of Police, Dhiru Basnyet, regarding our plans for next week's circus rescue. I was joined by colleagues Shailaja and Dilu who brought with them statements from parents of missing girls who may be at the target circus. These statements are often accompanied by pathetic pictures of the child trafficking victims sometimes pictured with their impoverished parents. One such picture from today's file of statements is shown right. The poverty stares out at you as the child and the father stand on a barren hillside in rural Nepal with the father's vest having a gaping hole worthy of a rabbit. I hope we find this little girl next week.

While we have been working hard for Nepal's children a fraudster was busy last week trying to take vast sums of money out of our bank account. Three very amateur cheques for around £13k, complete with spelling mistakes of the bank address, were picked up very readily by our bank.

It's not really such a funny old world.

Closing down child traffickers

I learned this morning of the arrest of two more (alleged) leading child trafficking agents who have been taking children to the circuses. The first, a man called Shankar Basnet who has been operating in the south/southeast of the country, was picked up by our staff in Nepal and is now being held at Hetauda police station. I gather that, bizarrely, Basnet has been under the protection of the wife of one of our own former staff members so she may well soon find herself under arrest too. The other, a female called Tamang, has been arrested on the Indian side of the border from where she was (allegedly) sending children to circuses including The Raj Mahal, the one that we raided in June. Our Indian partner, ChildLine India Foundation, instigated that arrest. She has now been charged and awaits trial.

Our next circus rescue operation will take place next week. Details to follow, but for security reasons I will report these after the event.

Melange

Yesterday marked a significant milestone in my not-for-profit business initiative in Nepal, Himlayan Mosaics. For the first time the girls' exquisite products were on sale in a retail outlet, a new shop called "Melange" in the upmarket Durba Marg area of Kathmandu. The shop was packed with friends and well wishers to shop owner Pratima Thapa on her first day of business. We managed to sell eleven mosaics yesterday with the most popular one being of koi carp, a design by former volunteer art teacher with the Trust, professional artist Rebecca Hawkins. Most intriguingly I was approached by a visitor who has the responsibility of re-designing one of Kathmandu's leading hotels which has 80 bedrooms and who is interested in talking about mosaic possibilities. Often these things come to nothing but if it did this would give the new company just the boost that it needs and work to a LOT of our beneficiaries.

Himalayan Mosaics presents a great opportunity as it gives my circus survivors rewarding employment and an income but I still have the need to fundraise significant amounts of funds for the Trust's ongoing work as the credit crunch is already starting to bite hard. With my about to go on another circus rescue next week, I feel the need of those funds very acutely.

The Last Dance

When I first came out to live here in 2004 nightlife in Kathmandu seemed pretty tame, with pubs calling for last orders at around 10.30 p.m. as the shutters came down on adjacent restaurants. Then with a breakdown in society's values - or a liberalisation depending upon your point of view - Kathmandu went through an entertainment revolution. Dance bars and massage parlours appeared on the scene and, as I wrote in a recent blog, recently you'd even see signs advertising "Striptease". Those of us in the development sector were very concerned at this deterioration as we witnessed Kathmandu becoming a sin city, a new venue for the sex tourists and final destination for naive and vulnerable girls trafficked from their village areas.

Last evening over dinner a friend of mine told me that apparently Thamel has changed within the last couple of weeks with it reverting to its former benign self. I hadn't noticed this - I don't go for nightlife so much as I once did - but his impression was confirmed when I read in the papers today that the new Government has vowed to shut down all dance bars within a few days. I think this reflects the conservatism of the Maoist-led government and this decision will go far to prevent Kathmandu's descent into becoming a cess pit.

Enjoy your telly

If anyone out there is unhappy with the content of your television programmes just count yourself fortunate that at least you can switch your set on as and when you feel like it.

Nepal, potentially one of the largest sources of hydroelectric power in the world, suffers under regular scheduled power cuts or "load shedding". Last dry season this peaked at 42 hours of cuts per week. Then with the onset of the monsoon in June the power cuts dwindled but, very unusually and ominously, didn't entirely go away. Last week load shedding was unexpectedly increased to 17.5 hours with the rationale being that the reservoirs were unseasonally low and, ironically, that the grossly mismanaged surplus of water that caused extensive flooding in south Nepal and north India had destroyed a vital electrical link with India. Today it has been announced that the load shedding burden is to be doubled to 35 hours with immediate effect - and we are still two weeks short of the end of the monsoon. Heaven alone knows how things will stand at the peak of the coming dry season. But we'll not be able to turn on our TV when we feel the urge for quite some time to come. Predictions are that in the absence of plans for any new dam constructions these power restrictions will continue for another five years, paralysing the nation's development and degrading its quality of life.

On a lighter note, I noticed the other day a huge advertisement for insurance cover that appears in the car park of our local department store, Saleways in Lalitpur. It offers substantial pay outs in the event of a range of unforeseen calamities that might occur as you browse the supermarket shelves oblivious to the dangers that may lurk behind them. However the compensation paid is linked to how much you have spent in the store over the preceeding twelve months and, hilariously, after the deduction of the cost of your shopping on the day of the injury or untimely death. I wonder how this compares with public liability insurance at Tescos?

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

Driving past Nepal's Central Bureau of Statistics in Kathmandu I often think of that old quotation from Benjamin Disraeli and amuse myself by reflecting on what must go on inside this not insubstantial edifice and what whoppers must emerge as a result of its staff's creativity. But in today's Himalayan newspaper there was a hint of the sound value that the these good offices deliver. At a conference held in Kathmandu on alternative toilet technology the Bureau contributed the statistic that fourteen million of Nepal's twenty five million population defecate in the open. I wonder how they arrived at that little nugget?

Marketing for Dummies

A couple of weeks' back I advertised for the post of Marketing and Sales Manager with Himalayan Mosaics. The process for applicants involves complying to an instruction to download and complete an application form from a website. This avoids my being swamped with CVs and cover letters from candidates who are unqualified and feel inclined to take pot luck at job advertisement that appears in the papers. Hopefully this approach also attracts candidates who are capable of some fresh thought. Of the 21 responses, only six elected to complete the form, the remainder hoping erroneously that their CVs alone would carry them through.

One of those who did see fit to complete the application form one wrote winningly in his personal statement:

"Whenever I observe to my marketing executive during the field work, they always prejudge the people. They have a bad concept why they will buy our produce because might be they are old, too young but these are all bulls**t. Marketing is all about the create the demand and give best ideas to your client. According to me anyone can buy your product if you make him/her realize it could be useful for you. It was my practical knowledge of marketing. During my official session I took lot of interviews for the position of marketing executive but I did not get a single person who really knows the mean of marketing. I believe marketing is a kind of work which we can comparison with this quotation “Monkey see Monkey do” ."

The job interviews promise to be interesting.

Today I found my mind wandering to higher things and to reflecting upon the marvellous holiday I enjoyed just a month ago on the island of Bryher in the Scilly Isles. With a population of 80 it was just right as retreat from Nepal. Bryher is home to one of our regular Nepal volunteers, Marian Bennett, who seems to be a regular feature on television programmes about the islands and is a splendid host through her holiday lets. It is also the location of a delightful little church which has four splendid modern day stained glass windows by local artist Oriel Hicks. Their subjects based around local flora and fauna are set off beautifully by the backdrop of the island landscape outside and represent a wonderful piece of contextual art.