Stop Girl Trafficking in Nepal

We walked under big mango trees through the courtyard of what had been the most beautiful school in all of Kavre. But no more. 26 of the 32 classrooms had been demolished by the earthquake, and bricks were still, a year later, piled up alongside stacks of window frames and debris.

The students were still coming, though, to learn in temporary bamboo and tin-sheet classrooms. We headed to one of the few rooms still standing to meet with 20 SGT students in senior high school and college. Stories poured out of them about the uncertainty of their lives in the past year—living in makeshift shelters, lost family members, little food. But we could hear their resolve as they described staying in school, despite the challenges.

I asked each of the girls around my table to think about what they would like to change about their country. One said: so many women have children over and over because they must bear a son. I’d like to change that. The next said: I’d like to change the caste system. Another: I would like to build good schools for all the children in Nepal. And one of the alums: I want to pass the test so I can work in government and change it from the inside.

One girl asked if she could sing us a song she had written. She had a lovely voice, and as she sang the room fell silent. Aruna was teary. I asked her to translate, and she said the song was about labor migration. Nepali people are poor and they go far away in planes under blue skies to work, but they come home in black coffins. That’s what this girl wanted to change.

Big questions for teenagers. And thoughtful answers. It gave us hope for the future of Nepal, even as it broke our hearts about the present.