The Indentured Daughters Program | Freeing Nepali Girls
How We Plan to Put the Labor Contactors Out of Business
NYF is ambitious. Our goal is nothing less than to eradicate the custom of bonding children in Nepal, and we are on the verge of accomplishing this.
In 2009, largely as a result of lobbying by NYF, the government of Nepal allocated more than $1 million each year for education, vocational training and housing for former bonded servants. This relieved us of the financial burden of providing scholarships to the thousands of liberated girls, letting us focus on freeing girls who are still enslaved.
„NYF will continue to liberate girls, provide goats and piglets as incentives, and implement our awareness program. It looks as though we will reach our goal of eradicating the bonding practice sooner now,“ said Olga Murray, NYF’s founder and honorary president.
Now that the vast majority of the bonded girls are free, NYF has shifted our focus from rescuing them to empowering them to be independent and successful. We provide trainings about topics such as cooperative management, marketing, self-employment, and small business management. These programs develop their confidence as well as their skills and enable them to start their own businesses. NYF arranged training in political activism and human rights for the most dynamic girls who show the greatest potential to become leaders of the movement against bonding.
Under NYF’s guidance, many of the girls have formed cooperatives which they use to create income generation projects and other financial opportunities for themselves and their families. The coops have been extremely successful. To date, liberated girls have established more than a dozen and are in the process of forming many more.
Furthermore, former indentured servants have formed an NGO called the Freed Kamlari Development Forum (FKDF). NYF trains its members to carry out the awareness campaign against servitude which NYF started, and now all of NYF’s work in the program area is conducted through FKDF. FKDF is organizing marches and public speeches, as well as mobilizing youth clubs, community leaders, and the media.
Since the government funds are only used to help girls who have been rescued, we need your support to free the girls who are still enslaved. Remember, for only $100 you can change the life of one of these children forever. Please give as generously as you can.