Country: Nepal

Group: Tharu

Date Finalized: 10/22/20

Team: Rayna Castillo (lead), Thomas Chia, Natasha Chandra

Content Warning: forced labor, forced displacement, ethnocide, violence against women and children, trafficking

Approximate Time Period: 1950-present

The Tharu are among the largest indigenous groups in Nepal, and they have been particularly vulnerable to discriminatory and violent practices such as forced labor (United Nations, 2009). Given their indigenous identity, they are often not designated into any particular caste. However, their treatment by those of the higher castes resembles that of lower caste groups (Krauskopff, 1995). In the 1950s, the eradication of malaria in Terai led to the mass migration of hill people to the region and the subsequent occupation of Tharu land and resources (BASE, 2015). After the monumental 1964 Land Reform Act, the Nepalese government nationalized land and ended the kipat— a system of communal land holding (Ghimire, 2010). This legislation subjected the Tharu to forced displacement and the loss of their ancestral lands, resulting in the further loss of their livelihood and any other forms of compensation (United Nations, 2009). This drove many Tharu into the bonded labor system (also referred to as kamaiya), in which individuals became “landless bonded workers in private farms and wealthier households” where they are paid little to no wages (BASE, 2015; United Nations, 2009). Young Tharu girls are especially exploited in this system, as they are sometimes enslaved in middle- and high-class homes (Shrestha, 2013).  Including the Tharu, an estimated 300,000 to 2 million individuals are in the system nationwide (United Nations 2009; Giri 2012). In 2002, the Nepal government abolished the kamaiya labor system and created rehabilitation programs with subsidies; however, many communities claim current efforts are insufficient, resulting in the persistence of these practices (United Nations, 2009). Given that much of this information comes from reputable sources and academic journal articles, the data quality is a 3 and provides sufficient evidence of forced labor for the Tharu.

Sources:

  1. Anaya, J. (2009). Report by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people (Report No. A/HRC/12/34/Add.3). United Nations. https://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-34-Add3_E.pdf
  2. BASE. (2015). History of the Tharu in Nepal. Backward Society Education (BASE). https://nepalbase.org/history-of-tharu/
  3. Childs, Kevin. (2016, February 18). Former Kamlari Slave Girls Pave the Way for Change in Nepal. New Internationlist. https://newint.org/blog/2016/02/18/kamlari-girls-speak-out
  4. Ghimire, R. K. (2010). Abolition of ‘Kipat’ Land Tenure System: The Context and Consequences. Tribhuvan University Journal, 27(1-2), 113-120. doi:10.3126/tuj.v27i1-2.26394
  5. Giri, B.R. (2012). The Bonded Labour System in Nepal: Musahar and Tharu Communities’ Assessments of the Haliya and Kamaiya Labour Contracts. Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences, 4(2), 518-547.
  6. Krauskopff, G. (1995). The Anthropology of the Tharus: An Annotated Bibliography. Retrieved October 13, 2020, from http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/kailash/pdf/kailash_17_0304_05.pdf
  7. Shrestha, S. (2013). Nepal’s slave girls. https://www.aljazeera.com/program/101-east/2013/9/28/nepals-slave-girls/