ARJUN POUDEL

Not all child domestic workers serving well-off families in the capital come from far-flung districts. Some have their parents in the Kathmandu Valley but still are sent to work at other people´s homes as they begin to grow up.

"Parents find it difficult to adjust in a single room with their growing children and send them to live and work at others' homes for privacy," said Pradeep Dongol, a child rights officer at the Children and Women in Social Service and Human Rights (CWISH). The organization advocates the rights of children and women and has been working against the practice of keeping domestic helps in the capital. According to Dongol, people who have migrated to the capital in search of work are facing a hard time to cope with rising inflation because of their poor income. "They live in a single room and have no problem till the children are little," he said. "Their problem grows as the children grow up."

People who have low income cannot afford two rooms in the capital because their entire earning would be used up in paying rent if they do so. He said that when child rights officers asked such parents why they sent their children to toil at others´ home, most cited an opportunity for better education as the reason. "But when we offered their children scholarships, stationeries and uniform, they were still reluctant to take the kids back," he said, adding, "We found out later that they felt uncomfortable to sleep in the same room with their growing children."

The organization has been planning to organize a gathering of domestic helps of the valley, which it rescued in the past. Dongol said that over 40 children have been invited to the gathering, which is going to be held next week. 

Due to poverty hundreds of parents in the capital are compelled to send their children to work as domestic helps. Meanwhile, studies have found that most child domestic workers never get to go to school regularly. They are even denied their basic rights by their masters.

Many children who have worked as domestic help complain that they suffer excessive torture, exploitation at the hands of their masters. In some instances, underage domestic servants have become victims of sexual abuses. Dongol said that if the house rent in the capital was reasonable, the parents would not send their children for worst form of labor.

Thousands of people in the capital fall below the poverty line. They even do not have access to proper sanitation, safe drinking water, right nutrition and other basic amenities.

Published on: 23 July 2013 | Republica