In the Dang District in western Nepal, many indigenous families from the Tharu ethnic group subsist as farm laborers. Unable to make ends meet, they have been forced into a desperate trade – selling their daughters to work far from home as bonded servants in private homes or as dishwashers in tea houses. Some of these children are as young as six.
Alone and far from home, these "indentured daughters" have no knowledge of the ways of city people or of other cultures, and most speak only the local dialect. Their living conditions are entirely at the discretion of their employers. The bonded girls seldom attend school and have no prospects for a decent future. Some are ultimately forced into prostitution. A donation of $100 will rescue a girl from indentured servitude, let her come home to live with her family, and provide her family with a baby goat or piglet as compensation for the lost wages. She is then free to go to school, and she may be the first member of her family to get an education.
