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Post |
| Rajib Sharma |
Posted
on 12-Nov-01 02:16 AM
This is a henious example of how western journalist with the help of some local slave mentality people of our society, taking adavantage of our liberal hospitable society and write such sewer journalism to defame our society.
Rajiv Sharma
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/11/07/ED235073.DTL
ONE WOMEN'S WORK TO STOP CHILD PROSTITUTION IN NEPAL
Stephanie Salter Wednesday, November 7, 2001
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PEOPLE WHO traffic in other human beings can't find a much more vulnerable population than that of Nepal -- especially if the preferred commodity is young girls.
"The status ladder for most families in Nepal goes like this: man, son, beast of burden, wife, daughter," said Bruce Moore, the field director of the American Himalayan Foundation. "Letting a daughter be sold or 'married' into prostitution is as dismissed as it would be for an Ohio farmer to sell a cow."
Dr. Aruna Uprety, a Kathmandu physician, confronts one of the worst consequences of this female devaluation every day: about 10,000 girls, most ages 9 to 16, are sold each year into the sex trade of neighboring India.
"When they contract HIV or AIDS, they are kicked out of the Indian brothels and sent back to Nepal where they are ostracized from their families and society," said Uprety. "Even though the money they sent home may have helped their fathers build nice houses, when the girls come back, they aren't allowed to live in the houses."
Uprety founded the Rural Health and Education Trust in 1995 to try to stem the flow of Nepalese girls to India with information and education. Funding from the San Francisco-based American Himalayan Foundation currently enables 500 girls in towns and villages in western Nepal to achieve something that is barely a dream for most females there -- to go to school.
Only 25 percent of Nepal's women and girls can write their own names. A mere 5 percent are considered highly literate, meaning that they can read and write in their own language and also have learned some English.
Uprety is in the Bay Area this week to address the American Himalayan Foundation and to raise awareness of the sorry status of women in her country.
"The lack of knowledge and information is the primary reason for this gender inequality," she said. "Girls and their parents are often lured into sending them to India by promises of a nice apartment or a beautiful life."
One procurer's method was to say he wanted to marry a girl and take her away on a honeymoon. By the time he was arrested, he'd forced about 1,400 girls into prostitution.
Educating Nepal's ultra-poor population of 23 million is a slow, deliberate pursuit for Uprety. Unlike developed countries, Nepal has no child protection laws or prohibitions against sex with minors. Girls in rural areas begin marrying at age 9.
Seventy percent of the country is without telephone service, and almost no one outside of Katmandu has a TV. Barely 15 percent of the people have access to any kind of medical care, and only 8 percent of women deliver their babies in a hospital or clinic.
Consequently, Nepal has the second-highest maternal mortality rate in the world, behind Afghanistan. The World Health Organization says 1,500 of 100,000 Nepalese women die of pregnancy-related ailments. Because 92 percent of deliveries take place where no one keeps statistics, the real mortality rate likely is astronomical.
The good news is, Uprety's work already is inspiring the kind of societal shift necessary to prevent future generations of girls from ending up in Bombay brothels.
Nepal's parliament is on track to pass an anti-trafficking law sometime next year. Meanwhile, in several villages, $100 a year provides a girl with tuition, books and a school uniform that sets her apart -- and up -- from others.
"The family's prestige goes up when their daughter gets a scholarship," said Uprety. "Suddenly, a girl has value."
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| anepalikt |
Posted
on 12-Nov-01 09:40 AM
Sharma ji:
I am not sure what you are objecting to. While the article does make it seem like Dr. Uprety is single handedly saving traffickign in Nepal, the rest of the reporting does not seem particularly alarming. Who are the "local slave mentality people of our society" you are talking about? and what has been taken adavantage of? Are you suggesting that child prostitution, the treatment of girls, their very poor situation in terms of health and education.. all these are the journaist and Dr. Uprety's imagination? Please elaborate.
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| sunakhari |
Posted
on 12-Nov-01 09:46 AM
I was confused as well, which part do you not agree with.
The one part that did stick out in my mind was the "The status ladder for most families in Nepal goes like this: man, son, beast of burden, wife, daughter," said Bruce Moore, the field director of the American Himalayan Foundation." But even that portion I think is debateable - we cannot just speak for ourselves as we who frequent this site do come from an (for lack of better words-its monday morning and Im still operating in weekend mode) almost elite background.
So please do elaborate.
Thanks
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| sally |
Posted
on 12-Nov-01 10:27 AM
I've been too busy to post anything for a looooong time, but hmmm ... I log onto the site and see this charming quote .... and since my Monday a.m. meeting has been pushed back, I guess I'll comment ...
The journalism is fine. Got no problem with that, although Rajiv's Sharma's reaction is fairly typical of what I've seen from a lot of people who confuse plain old reporting with criticism. Cool it, Rajiv. There's nothing wrong with Ms Salter's article except her choice of one particular quote.
What disturbs me is the Bruce Moore quote she included. I've been reading Nanda Shrestha's book, "In the Name of Development," and Shrestha has a terrific section on the expat mentality ... all the colonial mindset folks at Phora Durbar giggling at the supposed peculiarities of Nepalis while refusing to learn the language and living in their "little America" ... and while I don't know Bruce Moore, his patronizing, offensive, and over-generalizing quote fits very closely with what Shrestha describes and which I myself have seen among expats as well.
I think Ms Salter made a mistake in choosing to include the quote. She probably doesn't know much about Nepal herself, so in that sense she could be forgiven, but her instinct as a journalist--and as a member of the human family--should have told her that this quote, while a nice "sound byte," was offensive and probably too extreme to be true or helpful.
But the biggest mistake was made by Moore, who is tarring all Nepalis with one brush. That's as stupid as saying that, because family rape is an issue in some highly dysfunctional American families, Americans as a whole see their daughters as sex objects. There's a difference between identifying something (such as an attitude towards daughters that allows some families to sell them into prostitution) as a social problem, and using that same problem to characterize an entire society's attitudes.
If this quote is any evidence, Moore is apparently better at constructing sound bytes for journalists than at analyzing the genuine difficulties facing Nepal's women.
The article is not "malicious propaganda." That particular criticism is way off base. But it does hint at an attitude problem among foreign advisors, don't you think?
OK ... back to work!
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| Gandhi |
Posted
on 12-Nov-01 11:17 AM
Dr. Aruna Upreti has been in media for a long time, especially answering health related questions from the readers as well as writing numerous articlies about health and medicines. No doubt, she should be helping the poor through her organization.
The statistics given in the article are seem also realiable, if not absolutely correct. The facts she has given to the journalist is not an exggeration but a sad reality (also see the thread "Dillema") where there is some reflection of it.
There is nothing to object about the article, except the comparison of selling a cow by Ohio farmer and selling a daughter by Nepali father. Most of the fathers don't see that their daughters are going to be sold, as they are often illusioned that their daughter have found a good husband. The "Lami" brings the things so realistically that a poor father is always lured to marry his daughter to that boy.
Dr. Upreti's organiztion works with a supply side policy. Give those poor women a good education and there will be less women wanting to work as prostitution. That is a good long-term approach which requires a lot of resources and cooperation of every segment of the society. However, it is not exactly only her organization does follow a good path and only it will be successful. This is the way how any NGO leader in Nepal would talk to a donor. Is it an obsession of any Nepali NGO leader to see that "only the efforts made by own organization will be ultimately successful"? Is she unaware of the large network of stakeholders who are working against girls trafficking, preventing HIV/STD transmission and rehabilitation of HIV affected people including women worked in Indian brothels?
There are few other organizations which are also working in controlling sex trade through demand side approaches. That too is a long-term approach, changing the behavior of sex workers and their clients. These organizations work for reducing demand by educating the clients who ultimately reduce their frequency of visits and also following safe sex practices. In the same time, they are extensively networking with stake-holders to control girls trafficking too.
Third group is working for mostly a short-term solution to the problem with some long-term objectives. Stringent law inforcement and rehabilitation of the victims are some of the approaches in this category. Needless to say, there are very good efforts by some organizations within the country.
NNAGT (National Networking Against Girls Trafficking) is a large network of organization in Middle Development Region with its area expanding in other development regions recently. Nepal Police has its own program (mostly legal than general awaress) everywhere. Maiti Nepal has been running an extensive rehabilitation program for women sex workers who were trafficked and sold to India and now returned back to Nepal. General Welfare Foundation, Amda Hospital, Trinetra Community Development Foundation, WATCH etc. are working on Behavior Change of sex workers and raising awareness in society. There are many other organizations which are also working in local level. A group of student in Birgunj (I forgot the name) have been very successful in helping the school/college going students keep them from being a sex worker or a client.
Gandhi
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 12-Nov-01 11:35 AM
First of all, let me thank Sally for taking her time and posting here. We always
enjoyed her postings, I've met a lot others who enjoyed her informed postings
and I hope that she will continue to come here, and if possible, post her messages
whenever it is possible.
I have a few questions to Gandhiji, because I think he knows these things.
1. How do these data about child prostitution are compiled? For example, how do
these people know how many girls are sold each year to brothel? A lot of time,
due to my ignorance I guess, people tend to exaggerate the data to suit their
purpose.The number given are in hundreds of thousands, and I think, while the
whole process should be somewhat stochastic, but is being represented in
exponential way.
2. Is there any other organization than Maiti Nepal which is truly helping these
people? Whenever I read something in Nepali news, Maiti Nepal pops up. It is
only in English that I read some more obscure organization's name. May be they
are working hard, their purpose is noble, but, I rarely know about them.
3. Is Bagmati Anchal only the origin of such sale? What is the contribution of poorer
regions?
Hope you won't mind. I will appreciate it if others with knowledge on this field also
reply.
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| joie de vivre |
Posted
on 12-Nov-01 01:53 PM
I don't get it either - what the heck's Rajib objecting to? As Sally said, other than Bruce Moore's unfortunate choice of words, I see nothing wrong with the article. If there's anything malicious about the whole thing, I fail to see it.
Perhaps a case of reality bites on Rajib's part?
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| sunakhari |
Posted
on 12-Nov-01 02:25 PM
Allow me to expand on my comment (lest I be deemed insane and/or inconsistent) by some people here:
"But even that portion I think is debateable - we cannot just speak for ourselves as we who frequent this site do come from an (for lack of better words-its monday morning and Im still operating in weekend mode) almost elite background. "
Most of us (women/girls/ladies) who frequent this site do not seem/may not have been subjected to the outrageous classification of Bruce Moore and therefore, I feel (I) would not be doing any justice to it by commenting on it as there MAY be many women who feel that comment is accurate.
Sally, I would love to know where I could find a copy of that book you are talking about "In the name of Development".
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| sally |
Posted
on 12-Nov-01 03:22 PM
Sunakhari,
If you're at a US university, it's likely to be in the collection or available by Interlibrary Loan. Otherwise I think it can be ordered by the Internet.
Btw I wish Bruce Moore had showed half as much reluctance and conscientiousness about generalizing and speaking for others as you did in your comments! I think he's really dehumanized Nepali peasant parents in his assessment, and has also trivialized the whole problem behind women trafficking and the devaluation of women by turning it into a simplistic equation of daughter equals cow (or rather, daughter equals less than cow. Or less than "beast of burden," whatever he means by that ... maybe an ox ... but since he's talking about "most families" but "most families" probably don't own an ox, does he only mean "most families of plowmen"? Or does he mean "milk-producing creature of the bovine species" instead of "beast of burden," so that we can assume he means buffalo ... Anyway this can go on ad absurdeum ... The point being that he's talking about a genuine problem, but he's also speaking through his hat.)
Well, I guess the ability to come up with a catchy quote on cue must be good for fundraising. It's not quite as good for real understanding, though.
That said, I imagine most of us would agree that, of course, the article doesn't "defame" Nepal even a tiny, microscopic bit as much as the reality of women trafficking does!
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| Gandhi |
Posted
on 12-Nov-01 04:24 PM
This part is in response to Biswoji's question and others:
1. How do these data about child prostitution are compiled? For example, how
do these people know how many girls are sold each year to brothel?
In my knowledge, child prostitution (say any form of prostitution) is the least researched areas of socio-economic studies in Nepal. Legal constraints and resource constraints could be some of the reasons. However, the data generation is not always a stochastic, though lacks scientific backups.
Sometimes the figures are adopted as few NGO workers iterate it few times (don't be surprised our court also recognizes a corruption as a normal practice, i.e. not to be punished, when it is repeated for 3-4 times; Kedar Subedi in Charchit Prasanga). These figures could be some guestimation and varies from different groups to different groups. For example government estimate of HIV infected people is about 8000 while private sectors adopt a figure not less than 30,000. National Center for AIDS and STD Control (government body) has reported that approxmately 2000 people have died of AIDS in Nepal. This figure alarms us to believe these private sector figures are more realistic.
Though, there are few studies in recent days, NewEra's BS Survey to quote one of them. New Era has been conducting Behavoiral Surveilance Survey (BSS) on different parts of the country every two years. This contains data on different aspects of sex workers and clients. This indicates a significant presence of child prostitution. Their studies are often focussed on Nepalese sex workers operating inside Nepal. However, their study also reports more than 30% of such sex workers working, willingly or non-willingly, at least few months in India. Their studies are based on personal interviews with identified sex workers and clients of sex workers, who often give rough estimates of other people working like themselves. New Era's study is taken as basis for HIV/AIDS/STD related projects formulation in Nepal.
Besides these studies, I have not found any other reports which scientifically describes study methods and data presented analytically. In my knowledge, NNAGT is a smaller network of people without extensive human and material resources. I hope NNAGT has now compiled some accountable information on girls trafficking. However, they were also running behind the then present data while targeting their activities a couple of years ago.
2. Is there any other organization than Maiti Nepal which is truly helping these
people? Whenever I read something in Nepali news, Maiti Nepal pops up. It is
only in English that I read some more obscure organization's name. May be they
are working hard, their purpose is noble, but, I rarely know about them.
Running a rehabilitation program is a great challenge in terms of resources and legal procedures. Maiti Nepal has been among the top NGOs working for this. It is some sort of centralizing the resources and taking advantage of economy of scale. Maiti Nepal works in partnership with all other related NGOs/GOs and these organizations have a referral mechanism. That's why Maiti Nepal is a big name and other NGOs are unheard of in this regard.
3. Is Bagmati Anchal only the origin of such sale? What is the contribution of poorer
regions?
Sadly Sindhupalchowk district has been notorious for girls trafficking for a long time. Mostly Nuwakot and Sindhupalchok were focus for it. Though it happens in other area too, but this area had it in mass scale in the past. There are also some pocket areas in the western and midwestern region too.
Gandhi
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| nepali |
Posted
on 12-Nov-01 10:11 PM
Mr. Rajiv Sharma why you dont wanna accept reality of our Country, this is correct nepal where Criminal Becomes minister, any thing can happen, you can go and see villages of Sindhupalchowok, you can not see any youg girl. They all sold to India by Another nepali. And no one's stop them our politician are way too much currupted so they can not stop those people who are running business to sale our cheli beti to dhoti ko hat. Dr. Aruna is great persona she doing great job from her place. But there are people like pasupati samser who directly involve on these activites, who can stop trading nepalies girls?
There are so many fathersand brothers in rural sindhupalchwok, who enjoy money sent by their doughter/sisters from india. Young girls in those area of nepal known as a cash crop.
This is reality and happening in everyday in nepal. Who cares about it?
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