#339 9 - 15 March 2007 16 pages Rs 30 Weekly Internet Poll # 339 Q. How important do you think it is to address the demands of indigenous rights groups? Total votes: 3,664 Weekly Internet Poll # 340. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com Q. Do you think elections to the constituent assembly can be held in June? THOMAS BELL Adoption from Nepal is beginning to look like On sale trafficking A NEPALI TIMES decided to adopt from his had his representative on the meetings to be. INVESTIGATION orphanage, a further donation of adoption recommendation We were not asked by the $5,000 was strongly suggested. committee and that while he birth parents or by the lawyer and n the cramped Anamnagar Although he initially insisted could not jump the queue he orphanage chairperson what our office of an adoption broker on up-front cash of a third of his could use his influence. motivation was for seeking to I and his dusty orphanage in fee, he agreed to take a cheque for We met the parents. They adopt a Nepali child, or about our Ratopul, Nepali Times this week just over half the total amount. hardly looked unable to support ability to take care of the baby. made arrangements to buy a child Immediately after we agreed to four children as is required by An international conference for adoption. pay, he said he had “just met a law. The father said he was a on adoption that begins on We posed as a British couple family from his village who political worker-turned-teacher Sunday in Kathmandu aims to wishing to adopt a Nepali child wanted to put up for adoption a and earned “72 pounds”. He spoke promote Nepal as a destination and were told that the process child the age we wanted”. Earlier, fluently in English about for adoption and make the was complicated and involved he had said it could take months choosing a bright future for his process easier. It is happening eight government offices and to find a child as young as we youngest child “because love is amidst reports of adoption rackets agencies. The broker said he were looking to adopt. not enough”, enumerated the giving Nepal a bad reputation. could take care of the entire Then came the promises of child’s many good qualities, and Our broker said the committee process for a $1,500 fee. If we “guaranteed approval” because he used phrases like “transparency”, was pushing through 25 “unfair practices” and “legal adoptions a day ahead of the relationship”. There was one conference, so parents could condition, he said, his wife “come, attend the conference, pick wanted to periodically meet the up their child, and fly away”. child. They were evasive about where they would like the Full story p12-13 2 EDITORIAL 9 - 15 MARCH 2007 #339 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Editor: Kunda Dixit Executive Editor: Anagha Neelakantan Design: Kiran Maharjan Web: Rupendra Kayastha Director Sales and Marketing: Sunaina Shah [email protected] Circulation Manager: Samir Maharjan [email protected] Subscription: [email protected],5011628/29 Hatiban, Godavari Road, Lalitpur [email protected] GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu 5543333-6, Fax: 5521013 www.nepalitimes.com Printed at Jagadamba Press, Hatiban: 5547018 The power of one If one girl could do this, imagine of the girl, and to send her to school. what governments can do This is an example of how we IN THE INTERIM have been fighting for the rights In their impatience, the Maoists entered the interim legislature n my community it is not classes, our friends got together of disadvantaged children forced without completing arms management. That created problems all surprising to find girls and and opened a 'Working Children's to work at the expense of their around. Now they are entering the interim government without I women lagging behind, Club’ to help other working education and their future. This changing their spots. especially in education. Many children in our community. We is what we were able to do with Former guerrillas will take time to adjust to parliamentary people still feel that it is a waste organised street dramas, quiz just our enthusiasm. If this is politics. A gun-toting commissar recently threatened fellow educating a girl because she will contests, cultural programs and what children could do, parliamentarians with dire consequences even as Maoist MPs on marry and go to someone else's painting competitions so governments, with all their the opposition bench (including Comrade Mahara) thumped the house. I was not sent to school as everyone would know about power and resources, should be table. Finally, it fell upon Deb Gurung to make an embarrassing a child. I was lucky that an agency discrimination between sons and able to do much more so that apology. daughters, on HIV/AIDS, the every girl and boy can go to Such shenanigans have convinced other political parties that rights of working children and school. putting arms into containers and guerrillas into cantonments isn’t GUEST COLUMN Sunita Tamang similar issues. Huge effort is needed to enough. Even after a formal renunciation of violence, the Maoists There was a girl in our bridge the gap in social beliefs, will still need to prove that they have given up killing and neighbourhood working as a economic conditions to change maiming those who don’t agree with them. The Maoists also need like UNICEF was there assisting domestic helper in the house of a people's minds on getting girls to allow the internally displaced to return home and free girls who missed out on regular deputy superintendent of police. educated. It takes much more confiscated property. school to attend catch-up classes. We suspected that she was being effort to send girls to school. In the countryside the Maoist cadres still wage psy-war by After two years of non-formal abused by her employers, because What helped me was the break I boasting they have kept most of their guns, and that if they lose education, I joined regular school one of our club members had got to attend catch-up classes, the the constituent assembly election they will go back to war. Such in grade five. I am now in grade heard screams from the house. We uniform that was provided to me rhetoric doesn’t do the Maoists any good and will boomerang 10 and in two months I will be approached the employer. Because free of cost to attend regular during elections. appearing for SLC. I go to school he was a policeman, he tried to school. Under pressure and after heated discussions at Baluwatar in the mornings and work at a scare us off. But we didn't give What would help many other this week, Pushpa Kamal Dahal met Girija Koirala to sort out factory assembling match boxes in up. We persisted and with help girls who are not as lucky as me these issues. The deck has been cleared now to include Maoist the afternoons. from others finally convinced the is for the government to ensure nominees in an interim government. This is the penultimate step While at the out-of-school policeman not to abuse the rights free education for all children, before constituent assembly elections. with the option of vocational The seven parties aren’t happy with the absence of Dahal and Baburam Bhattarai in the interim education for working children, legislature. They continue to walk free of the or children who have returned responsibilities of parliament. If the Maoists really from the conflict. All it needs a want the post of deputy premier, it would make sense little bit of effort, extra money if either one of the Big Two jumped in. That will raise and commitment in providing the profile of the Maoists’ presence in the opportunities for disadvantaged government, help instill discipline among nominees children to get educated. in parliament, and expedite the peace process. Look at me, I work in a match That government will then decide on constituent factory and today I have been able assembly elections. As we see it, a June poll will to come here and share my only benefit those who don’t want it to be free and fair feelings and experiences with and are bent upon winning it by intimidation and you all. threats. The political parties must stop grandstanding on the polls and quit blaming others for its delay. Sunita Tamang, 15, is a student at the The interim government must announce a precise Jana Bikas Secondary School in date for post-monsoon elections, work towards Biratnagar. She was in New York last normalising the tarai and ensuring the laws are in week as a panelist in the ‘Girls Speak Out’ session at the 51st Commission on place to make the electoral process more the Status of Women. Binita Shrestha, representative and fair. radio producer of ‘Saathi Sanga Manka Kura’ translated Sunita's speech at the session. Let the games begin he sudden spurt in politicking is a sign that the major actors are The politics of masks, sidestepping, feints, and gambits T readying themselves for constituent assembly elections. It will only intensify arch gadfly. In the morning, he threatens a know that such a rash decision can have republican slogans, the MJF didn’t even after the Maoists join the government and walkout from Singha Darbar if the interim unintended consequences. But if a mildly criticise Gyanendra’s inflammatory since Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhab government is not formed by mid-March. decidedly conformist political outfit like Democracy Day speech.