Bonded Labour Practice in Nepal

Abstract

This article highlights that in Nepal, the promise of education seems to have become a magnet of child bondedness. After some government intervention in 2000, the haliya and kamaiya bonded labour practices have become a socially stigmatising matter for adults, and a legal hurdle for kisan (landlord) employers, but the practices continue. Both parties to these bonded labour practices seem to have found the idea of education as a safe meeting point. While parents send their children to work with the hope of obtaining education for them, besides other material benefits, employers seek to pay as little as possible and will often not give sufficient time to their young workers to study. Though most children have little or no say during the contract, they, too, are initially attracted by the promise of education. Based on detailed fieldwork, this article explores to what extent the largely unfulfilled educational aspirations for Musahar and Tharu working children can be seen as a restrained form of empowerment or a continuing system of bonded labour in Nepal.