Nepal to free slaves trapped by ancestors' debts

Posted 09 10 2008 12:46PM

KATHMANDU (AFP) - Nepal's Maoist-led government has vowed to end the practice that has seen around 150,000 bonded labourers living in virtual slavery as they struggle hopelessly to pay off the debt.

"This will be scrapped after a committee we have appointed submits its report," Krishna Bahadur Mahara, the Maoist government spokesman, told AFP on Monday.

In the 1940s Sita Bishwokarma's grandfather took out a loan worth 120 dollars, and since then his family has lived in virtual slavery, victims of a practice that Nepal has now vowed to end.

Under the "Haliya" (land tiller) system that remains active in Nepal's far west, children inherit debt accrued by their parents and grandparents and have to work for moneylenders and landlords to pay it off.

"My grandfather worked as a Haliya because of the loan he took from a landlord," Sita Bishwokarma, 37, a Haliya visiting Kathmandu to lobby the government, told AFP.

"He could not pay it back, neither could my parents, so I have had to follow the same tradition," she said.

Bishwokarma has had to plough fields, collect animal feed, prepare food and look after the landlord's children -- all for no salary.

"It is endless work with no pay at all. All we get is a tiny place to live and minimal food," said Bishwokarma, from Doti district, 440 kilometres (275 miles) west of Kathmandu.

Nepal officially abolished all forms of slavery in 2001, but in remote parts of the impoverished country the Haliya system lives on.

"It has continued in our region because landlords forced poor people to continue with this age-old tradition," Gorak Sarki, a Haliya also from Doti, said.

"The local authorities just ignored us. Many of the landlords are rich and used to be well connected with local and national government authorities," Sarki said.

The Haliya labourers hope that after Nepal's new government abolishes the practice, they will be guaranteed a minimum wage as well as an allocation of land.

"We have high hopes of the Maoists. They have promised revolutionary land reforms so we hope they will address our issues," said Dambar Bishwokarma, another Haliya labourer.

The Maoists are now leading the country after signing a peace agreement in 2006 to end a bitter, decade-long insurgency.

They emerged victorious in landmark polls in April for a body that abolished the monarchy and is now due to write a new constitution for the world's newest republic.

Dambar Bishwokarma prays future generations will be free of the Haliya system.

"We have had to live through very dark days and I hope my kids won't face the same thing," he said.