By Philip Holmes | Project leader
ChoraChori's child rescue team had a busy end to 2016 with the repatriation of seven more Nepali boys from India. One of these was a 15 year old lad called Suraj who comes from the far west of Nepal. After losing his parents at the age of six he went to live with his aunt, who looked after him well. Still, after he turned ten he was tempted to seek a better life in India and headed south of the border. He spent the following five years on the streets, at railway stations and eventually ended up inside an Indian children's home, whereabouts unknown to his family.
The Indian authorities handed Suraj and six other boys over to us last October. He joined our transit refuge in Kathmandu but our care staff found him very introverted and indeed traumatised by his experiences. Suraj offered little information about his family but in spite of that our field staff managed to trace his village. By the end of the month the team was ready to start the two day journey to reunite Suraj with his family although at that stage we had no named contact in his home area.
As the team approached the village, Suraj changed and began to feel nostalgic, happily leading our workers towards his home. Since his family members were not expecting this visit they were overcome with emotion when Suraj arrived at the house. Everyone was in tears - see this film. For sure Suraj won't be returning to India. He has told us that he wants to train to become a mechanic so that he can find work locally and support his family that way.
Suraj is just one of 71 boys that ChoraChori has rescued from India since the programme launched in late 2015. Of these 56 have been returned to families with the remaining 15 staying at our refuge while we carry on working at tracing/reuniting or making other arrangements if this isn't possible. Hundreds of trafficked and displaced children remain in India and we need your continued help in making a difference to these children and their families.
At the end of this month we aim to remove 30 Nepali children from a home in Bihar, north India, with a budget that works out at approximately £1,000 per child. This allows not only for the repatriation (which is a comparatively low cost element) but also for the subsequent field work and refuge care. Some of the latter can be a long term need. So please help us if you can!
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