The aim of the journey was to accompany one of the charity's Trustees, Chris Haworth, on a factfinding trip to the rural areas around Hetauda which have been the main source of trafficked children to the Indian circuses (and elsewhere). On top of that I would be able to catch up on the circumstances of some of our beneficiaries' families through being guided by Shailaja, my partner Director in Nepal. And photographer Jonny Cochrane was with us, tasked with documenting the poverty.
Yesterday I went to visit the homes of several girls, including that of the girl who has just given evidence against the circus owner who (allegedly) raped her before we intervened to secure her release f
rom The New Raj Kamal Circus in January 2007. She is one of eight children and we met the latest arrival to this very dysfunctional family - a babe in arms. The family home, pictured right with two of this girl's younger siblings, wasn't even made from wood; a lot of it seemed to consist of bark held together with mud. This and other village abodes, although sad to see, didn't shake me as much as one might imagine. I have seen this kind of hut many times before in Nepal and in other parts of the world.
rom The New Raj Kamal Circus in January 2007. She is one of eight children and we met the latest arrival to this very dysfunctional family - a babe in arms. The family home, pictured right with two of this girl's younger siblings, wasn't even made from wood; a lot of it seemed to consist of bark held together with mud. This and other village abodes, although sad to see, didn't shake me as much as one might imagine. I have seen this kind of hut many times before in Nepal and in other parts of the world. This morning though I was taken unawares. We went to a very different kind of community where families were living in regimented brick-built cottages that had been constructed for them by a major international aid agency. We wanted to meet Basante and Hari, a couple whom we had freed from a circus in April 2004 (two of 29 releasees) who had subsequently got married and are now parents to two little girls. On the way to their cottage I was impressed with the layout of the buildings and their adjoining gardens and when we got there, the cottage looked fine as well. Then we went inside. It was then that I realised that we were still in the midst of raw poverty; it was only the walls and roof that surrounded it which were different from yesterday's experience. Somehow the juxtaposition of solid walls with the emptiness and grime within seemed to accentuate the hardship that the two families who were sharing the premises were having to endure. Indeed, the solidity of the walls even made it feel like a prison. A baby girl lay on the bed, with flies crawling around her eyelids. She was unresponsive to my attempts to connect with her.
Then came the haunting, surreal image. Shailaja beckoned to me to look inside one of the back rooms. There she indicated a lump on the bed. The lump was Basante and Hari's older child, a four year old girl, sitting upright, who had hidden herself under a quilt, something that she does for all visitors. It reminded me of the game that I play with my two and a half year old d
aughter - "Where's Alisha", as she hides in really obvious locations. But this wasn't a joke. The child was clearly traumatised by her environment, and harboured a terror that had been exacerbated by the death of one of the young women in the house a month ago. Another woman who was sharing the cottage told us how her brother had taken his own life by hanging a few months previously, an occurrence that was quite common within this desperate community. Eventually we coaxed the girl out from under the quilt and she posed with her parents for the picture on the right (the girl with the red collar). She was but one of a handful of similarly aged children who were just loitering at home, totally unstimulated.
aughter - "Where's Alisha", as she hides in really obvious locations. But this wasn't a joke. The child was clearly traumatised by her environment, and harboured a terror that had been exacerbated by the death of one of the young women in the house a month ago. Another woman who was sharing the cottage told us how her brother had taken his own life by hanging a few months previously, an occurrence that was quite common within this desperate community. Eventually we coaxed the girl out from under the quilt and she posed with her parents for the picture on the right (the girl with the red collar). She was but one of a handful of similarly aged children who were just loitering at home, totally unstimulated.Afterwards we visited a local school and discussed with the Headteacher how we might provide some community upliftment through broadening the educational provision available for the local children. This currently goes to only Class 5 (9-11 year olds). We discussed the possibility of introducing a creche for the kind of children that we had just seen and how education could be extended into Class 6 and beyond. He was very receptive and I believe something useful and positive has emerged from that meeting.
Nonetheless I came away from the village deeply saddened and wishing that those toddlers could be just scooped up out of there and given an infinitely better chance in life in the developed world. I am sorry, that's not very politically correct and quite naiive but that's how I felt.
