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Every year in the Himalayan country of Nepal, thousands of girls are sold by their families to be bonded servants. Olga Murray, an 84-year-old American, is in the process of eliminating this custom. The organization founded by Olga uses a unique method: it offers a family a piglet or goat, which they can raise on scraps and sell for more money than they would receive for their daughter’s labor, in exchange for simply letting their daughter stay at home and get an education.
The Tharu ethnic group is comprised predominantly of underprivileged farmers in rural western Nepal, living in thatch huts without electricity or running water. Many Tharu live in very remote areas and must trek for several hours to reach the nearest road. They tend to have more children than they can feed, and many sell their daughters, some as young as six, to be servants in wealthy homes or tea shops. The bonded girls typically slave from dawn to dusk, eat leftovers, and sleep on the floor. Although many bonded girls are beaten and raped and some end up in brothels in India, the selling of daughters has been a widely accepted tradition in Tharu culture. This is now changing because of Olga Murray.
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Olga spent nearly 40 years as a staff attorney at the California State Supreme Court. During her time there, she strove to correct injustices, helping to write important decisions in the areas of children’s issues and women’s rights. She first visited Nepal in 1984 as a tourist to go trekking in the Himalaya, and discovered far more injustices to rectify. Shocked by the terribly impoverished condition of children in the villages, Olga found a new passion in her life. She returned to Nepal the next year, but this time, she was determined to improve the livelihoods of needy children. She gave scholarships to boys in a desperately underfunded orphanage.
The following year, Olga went on another trek in a remote area of Nepal. While hiking deep in the Himalaya, she fell and broke her leg. A porter carried her in a basket on his back for days. When she finally returned to the city of Kathmandu, she was treated by a young orthopedic surgeon who had just opened a hospital that provides free treatment for disadvantaged children with physical disabilities. Olga was shocked by the terrible condition of these children, many of whom were abandoned at the hospital because their families were too impoverished to feed a child who couldn’t work on the family farm. Other children were too severely disabled to walk the mountain trails from their village to the nearest school. Olga began to give scholarships to some of these children for special boarding schools that could provide for their needs. When she returned to the U.S., she convinced many of her friends to donate scholarships, as well.
As the number of scholarships grew, Olga founded the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation (NYOF) to transform the lives of disadvantaged Nepalese children in an organized way. Today, NYOF continues to provide extremely vulnerable youth in Nepal with human rights, education, health care, and loving support.
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As energetic and determined as ever, Olga Murray still leads NYOF in what she considers her “second career,” although this career entails being a full-time volunteer. She spends most of each year living in Kathmandu, a city studded with ancient temples where local people perform colorful daily rituals and the streets are frequently clogged with political demonstrations or traffic. Amid this chaos and noise, Olga finds a true sense of home because she is surrounded by many of the children her organization supports. She often spends time at the two children’s homes in Kathmandu that NYOF runs, where kids run up to her to give hugs and lovingly call her “Olga Mommy.” Olga also visits NYOF’s Nutritional Rehabilitation Home (NRH) in Kathmandu, where severely malnourished children and their mothers come to stay for an average of five weeks. While they live at the NRH, the children are restored to their full weight and health, while the mothers are trained in nutrition and child care to ensure that the problem does not recur.
In the vastly different landscape of remote, rural Nepal, many Tharu fathers sell their daughters for around $75 per year. Olga Murray and NYOF’s staff spread throughout Tharu communities, many of which can only be reached on foot by following winding unmarked trails, to search for girls who are being bonded. When then identify one, they inform her parents of the abhorrent conditions in which many indentured girls live, and offer a piglet or goat in exchange for letting the girl stay home and go to school. Most parents are easily convinced to join the program, although Olga and her staff often encounter resistance and animosity from the wealthy people who buy the girls and the middlemen who facilitate the sales.
Olga encourages the girls who have been rescued by NYOF to form local organizations that turn their communities against the bonding custom and empower other former indentured servants. The girls implement a multi-pronged approach that includes performing street plays about the plight of bonded servants, going door to door to convince parents to let their girls stay at home and attend school, hosting weekly radio programs, and marching in rallies. Olga sometimes marches in the rallies and shouts slogans right alongside the girls. Olga’s organization has also helped the girls start a cooperative henna farm and obtain vocational training in fields such as tailoring and driving taxis.
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NYOF’s innovative method has already rescued over 5,000 girls from virtual slavery in the last nine years, and the organization is rapidly expanding its program. Olga Murray is determined to eradicate the practice of bonding daughters, and based on her success to date, she will accomplish this ambitious goal within several years.
At the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation’s website, www.NYOF.org http://www.nyof.org/, you can read more about Olga Murray’s experiences http://www.nyof.org/aboutNYOF/story1.html that led her to dedicate her life to the children of Nepal, as well as NYOF’s projects http://www.nyof.org/programs that transform the lives of impoverished Nepali children.
Copyright © 2009 Gregg Tully
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