girls

We had gone up into the hills recently to launch a teenage girl support program, providing materials such as shoes, uniforms, books, pens, exercise copies, bags of rice, and more importantly things like tuition, training on gender, human rights, leadership, confidence, communication, and the like. Especially to deal with parents' (both mothers and fathers) alcoholism, domestic violence and sexual abuse.

We interviewed personally about 90 girls and their families over a three day period and it was a harrowing experience to say the least. Tears welled up at least 3 times even in me, to hear their difficulties, of parents who had worked in garment factories and had life threatening diseases due to exposure to chemicals but whom factory management had compensated with 300 dollars, of fathers who had put their children's hands on burning stoves to discipline them, of children who had to work to support the family, of sexual abuse. Of children who had to walk 2 hours to school one way without shoes up hillsides and mountains. Of being cold enough and having to forage for your own firewood. And still the Hindu festivals and religious devotion burns strong, fanatical perhaps. Trade Unions are also incredibly mobilized and powerful there.

Of course i understand why everyone bootlegs their own moonshine and drinks until the cows come home. Hell, i would do that for sure! And then the children grow up, are taken out of school at year 9 and used as child labour. Murders etc and violent crimes also abound in these remote hilltop communities, which are ill-policed due to difficulties of travelling etc. Most people live without electricity and piped water (in this day and age) and studying is the most difficult option, not the easiest. God. What a nightmare! I can't even imagine. And of course the perpetual guilt of others like me, in this profession. Forgotten by the rest of the country, the situation has remained the same in the plantation community for the last 50 years.