While rescuing under-age children working as domestic help in well-off families, Ashok Shrestha, chief of the Social Welfare Division (SWD) at the Lalitpur Sub-metropolitan City, recalls having faced life threats from people working in the law enforcement agencies. 

“I even faced life threats. We had to struggle a lot to rescue these children," said Shrestha, adding that they have so far rescued seven out of 10 such children from ward 14 of the sub metropolis. He informed that all the rescued children were employed as domestic help in wealthy households. Some of these children were even employed by police and army officers. 

With the help of Nepal police and child rights activists, the sub metropolis on Friday rescued seven domestic helps on Friday from ward 14. The Department of Labor also helped the sub metropolis in rescuing the under age children. 

According to Shrestha, the remaining three domestic helps, which the sub-metropolis could not rescue, have been working in the house of an army officer, retired Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) and a doctor. “They accused us of an agent of NGO,” said Shrestha. The sub- metropolis had last year declared ward 14 and 21 as child labor free zones and had also launched green flag campaign. 

Children-women in Social Service and Human Rights (CWISH), an NGO that advocates for the rights of children and women informed that the organization rescued 342 domestic helps from the capital in 2014.

The organization said that most of the children were rescued from the homes of people serving in law enforcement agencies or people like doctors, engineers or businesspersons. 

“People from the higher social class are not very supportive of the idea of abolishing child labor. They do not even allow rights activists to enter their homes to meet the children,” said Pradeep Dongol, a child rights officer at CWISH. He said hundreds of children from the districts adjoining the capital have been working as domestic helps for wealthy households in the Valley.

Published on: 17 February 2015 | Republica