Bishnu Chaudhary, Hope for the nepali girls

 When she was nine years old -she’s now 19- she was sent by her parents to work as a kalamari (domestic slave) for about 20 dollars per year. 

It’s traditional in Nepal to give daughters away in exchange for a loan. A practice that Chaudhary is determined to erradicate. Next year she’ll go to college to study Law and “be able to make justice”. She collaborates with  ONG Plan, an organization which rescued her after two years in slavery.

 “I worked all day, everyday, but they were never satisfied. Sometimes they hit me with a stick and I didn’t know why.” She says about the family she calls her owners.  ”They tried to convince me that my destiny was to be a slave. The spit in my food, sometimes, they didn’t give me any food at all”. 

She speaks basic english that she learnt in high school. To study had always been her dream, the first thing she asked for when she returned home at 11 years old. It wasn’t easy to convince her parents to let her do it, they were so poor they couldn’t do without her income, and her father was contrary to the idea of girls going to school. 

“Now the are proud of me” she says. “They don’t know how to write or read. My mother cries for joy when she sees me give speechs about human rights”

To hold the conference she’s wearing her formal dress, the same dress she wore the three times she met the now ex-president of her country.

“I threatened him” she laughs, “I told him that if he didn’t work for our rights, we would do anything. We achieved that a budget to protect female slaves was created for the first time. But it’s not enough. I want to be a women’s lawyer and pressure the government more.”

Source