Speaking at a programme in Dhangadi on Monday, Shramlal Chaudhary, the programme coordinator of BASE, said although the government declared abolition of Kamlari system on 18 July, 2013, many girls and young women are still under the yoke of slavery, calling for a greater and effective intervention from the government and other concerned authorities to end the system.
The whereabouts of five Kamlaris from Kailali are still unknown, Chaudhary said, and the only way to track down their status is that the authorities should arrest the middlemen who took those young women from their parents with the assurance to find them jobs.
According to BASE, 24 Kamlaris have disappeared from Banke, Bardiya, Dang and Kailali. Hema Chaudhary, who works for Kamlari rights and their freedom, suspects that many of the missing Kamlaris may have been sold off by their masters to other families.
“We have come across such incidents in the past. The authorities should be arresting the people trading humans as commodities,” said Hema.
She claimed that the government is not giving due attention to the predicaments of Kamlaris trapped in drudgery they did not ask for.
After the government outlawed Kamlari system, the District Administration Office (DAO) said that it has rescued 10 girls and young women working as indentured servants. Many believe that there are far many Kamlaris in Kailali and other parts of the country who are in need of rescue.
Though the DAO had issued a public notice asking the families keeping Kamlaris to free them, not every one has taken the notice seriously, said Hema.
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