Well, I just learned there are a series of required blog posts that I didn’t know about. So here goes!

BASE, the organization I am partnered with, works to empower all marginalized groups within their districts; however, they focus on issues affecting Tharu people. Tharus are one of the indigenous people of Nepal. In 1854 Jung Bahadur, the first Rana prime minister of Nepal, developed the Mulki Ain, a codification of Nepal’s indigenous legal system which divided society into a system of castes. The Tharus were placed at next to the bottom( lowest touchable, above untouchables) of the social hierarchy. Their custody of their customarily held land was taken away, disrupting their community and displacing the people. In the 1950s, World Health Organisation helped the Nepalese government eradicate malaria in the Terai region. This resulted in immigration of people from other areas to claim the fertile land, making many Tharus virtual slaves of the new landowners and developing the kamaiya system of bonding generations of Tharus families to labour. The Kamaiya system was only formally outlawed by the government of Nepal on July 17 of 2000. The implementation of this policy by the government was slow, and BASE played a lead role in freeing ex-Kamaiyas from their owners. While prior to 1983, most Tharu children worked for landlords instead of going to school in order to repay their parents’ loans, today, most of the child labor in the regions I’ve been working in have been Tharu due to the poor economic conditions that the ex-Kamaiyas have experienced coming out of bondage without sufficient livelihood support.