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Whilst volunteering in Nepal with Restless Development I met some of the most incredible, inspiring and brave women and girls. Their buoyant, powerful, colourful personalities starkly contrasted with their stigmatised and restricted social positions, making me want to focus on women's rights as part of my Action at Home.

Women in Nepal are still seen as second class citizens in many ways. My auntie (host mother) had never been to school and imposed the practice of chhaupadi (menstruation rules) on all the family. These rules are based on the idea that women are 'dirty' whist on their period and can contaminate cooking utensils, food and water. As a result when my auntie was menstruating my host brother and 2 sisters, all under the age of 12, would have to do the household cooking and cleaning, placing an unnecessary burden on them and herself. My auntie's husband was working abroad in Malaysia and does not come home for 3 years at a time making her the heart and soul of family life; she would be up at 5am to do household chores, cook everyone morning daal bhat, and fetch water from the tap before walking up steep hills with narrow paths to collect firewood and food for the cattle. Then she would tend to the animals, do washing, sometimes go to the market and often work in the field before cooking us all evening daal baht and cleaning again. Her whole existence was focused on completing tasks which made the day to day life of her family possible; it appeared to me, having grown up with Western comforts, as a daily struggle for survival which filled me with awe and admiration. Across Nepal women like my auntie show such fortitude and strength of character but are still viewed as weaker than men and bear social restrictions which make their lives harder still, such as chhaupadi and early marriage. 

In the school where I taught girls had such potential, dedication and vivacity but I was painfully aware that many of them would not leave the realm of domestic life and had their future's mapped out for them as housewives. If this is what the girl aspires to and she is happy then that is perfectly acceptable but it did not feel as though many girls had a choice, especially in rural areas. We went to one marriage ceremony where the couple had never met and the bride had not even seen a photo of her intended: they had some say after their first meeting but clearly there was a lot of pressure for the ceremony to go ahead. 

The fact that on top of these social challenges there is a real threat of trafficking concerned me deeply. We ran a school session on the issue of girls' trafficking and harassment looking at how it happens and what action is being taken to stop it. That's how I found out about Maiti Nepal which was founded by an incredible woman called Anuradha Koirala and focuses on raising awareness of trafficking, trying to prevent it and providing safe houses and rehabilitation for victims. The thought that young girls just like my host sisters, and families from poorer, rural areas are vulnerable to the promises made by traffickers of good city jobs and money made me determined to take action. These horrendous human rights violations committed against women and girls should not be happening and certainly not on such a huge scale; between 5,000 and 12,000 girls aged from as young as 7 years old disappear from Nepal every year, and an estimated 200,000 girls from Nepal are working in brothels in India.

Victims of sexual trafficking are enslaved in debt bondage and lose all freedoms, their childhood, families, community, and hope for the future. To try and empathise with their situation in some small way I will be living on £7 for one week to raise money for Asha Nepal which is a charity that does similar work to Maiti Nepal but was easier to donate to through JustGiving. I'm already grateful if you've read this far but would be over the moon if you could donate and support a charity working to end this horrible injustice.

Thanks so much and I'll be posting updates letting people know how my challenge is going!

If you'd like more information here are the links for Maiti and Asha Nepal:

www.maitinepal.org

www.asha-nepal.org

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