BARDIYA, NOV 29 - The hope of ex-Kamaiyas for a better and prosperous life has been vanquished by imminent poverty , as a majority of the ex-Kamaiya children are engaged in various types of labour works for livelihood in Bara district. The district has some 3,000 children aged five to fifteen who are employed in high risk works, according to sources.
Though freed-Kamaiya children have provision of schools in their vicinity, they prefer to engage themselves in work rather than attend school. In most cases, the parents sell their children to their previous landlords in exchange of food grains, according to sources. Sources also allege that the NGOs working for ex-Kamaiyas are highly self-centred and driven by their own selfish interests. Thus they remain centred only in Gulariya, the district headquarters. Around 200 NGOs associated with ex-Kamaiyas are said to be active in the district.
“For many ex-Kamaiya families, children are the main source of income. Thus they are employed in the ex-landlord’s house where they serve as bonded labours for five to six years just for five to six quintals of paddy,” claimed Pancha Ram Tharu, the Chairman of Freed-Kamaiya Society.
Some NGOs working for ex-Kamaiyas have come with the report that the around 3,000 ex-Kamaiya children are employed, some on high risk works which is against the norms of the ILO.
Tharu Women Upliftment Centre, an NGO, has been running literacy classes for the freed-Kamaiya children who are employed in lodges and houses with special arrangement with their employers. Such children are given tuition two hours a day, according to a NGO source.Posted on: 2003-11-28 11:17

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