MUDA, NEPAL – Taruna Badi, 38, a member of the Badi community, one of the most marginalized groups in Nepal, says that three years ago she thought her days of prostitution were over.
In 2007, she and dozens of other Badi women traveled all the way from Kailali, a district in Nepal’s Far-Western Region, to the capital, Kathmandu, in the Central Region, to protest with the National Badi Rights Struggle Committee, NBRSC, a nongovernmental organization. Together they demanded that the government address various problems plaguing the Badi community – namely the economic hardship that drives many Badi women into prostitution.
The government and the committee reached an agreement, with the government promising to develop community employment programs and other assistance for Badi women. But four years later, those same women say they’ve barely received any support.
A recent government field study confirmed that few promises have been fulfilled.
“What else to do?” Taruna Badi says in desperation. “Prostitution is the only means of earning so far for us.”
Taruna Badi says that without the government’s help, the Badi women can’t help themselves, thanks to a lack of education and inferior social status. Badis are part of the socially and economically disadvantaged Dalit caste, which has traditionally been considered “untouchable.”
“We haven’t had education and hence can’t get any work,” Taruna Badi says. “If we try to start a business with the help of loans, customers ostracize our establishments on the grounds that they are run by ‘untouchable’ Dalits. What is an alternative then for means of survival?”
With five children and her husband, Krishna Badi, in India in search of work, she says she has returned to the sex trade because she was unable to get another job to make a living. Badi women say they earn between 50 rupees, 70 cents USD, and 200 rupees, less than $3 USD, for sex.
“Food is a necessity,” she says. “Children need to be fed. There is [not] another source of income. This is the only source of income for us.”
Her husband says that Badi husbands understand that their wives must work as prostitutes so their families can survive.
“Our women have been engaged in this profession for ages,” he says. “If it was just my wife alone who was a prostitute, then it would have been difficult [for me to come to terms with]. But all Badi women are engaged in the same profession.”
With no education and crippling social status, Badi women say that prostitution is their only option to earn enough money to feed their families. Four years after the 2007 agreement by the Nepali government to rehabilitate the Badi community through various socio-economic initiatives, advocates say little has been done, forcing the women back into prostitution. A government subcommittee recently confirmed this reality during a two-week field study and is delivering its recommendations to Parliament, as nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, and women’s rights activists continue to advocate for Badi rights.
Nepal’s “Muluki Ain,” or Civil Code, of 1853, categorized the Badi community as the lowest among Dalits. Years of political, economic and cultural discrimination have left the women in the impoverished Badi community with little other choice than prostitution to earn money for their families.
Sociologists say that ancient kings brought the Badi people to Nepal from India to sing and dance for them, which may factor into Badi women’s continued involvement in the entertainment industry. Badis used to also earn a living making and selling madals, a traditional Nepali musical instrument, and earthenware, such as clay pots, but modernization has decreased the demand for such products. Despite being rich in skills and the arts, 95 percent of the Badi community lives below the poverty line, according to the Community Support Committee, a nongovernmental Badi community-led organization.
A Culture of Prostitution
Few Badi people have land of their own, living instead in cottages on others’ and government properties by the roadside, on riverbanks and on the forest edges. Few Badi women are educated, thanks to economic hardship and little emphasis on education in their community. Plus, tradition has long dictated that Badi women become prostitutes.
Though they technically chose the profession, the women lament that it was their only option without any educational or financial resources. Many say they would readily give it up if the government followed through on its 2007 promise.
Like Taruna Badi, Maya Badi, 32, from Doti, another district in the Far-Western Region, says she too thought that Badi women would finally be able to relieve themselves of the derogatory work of prostitution after the 2007 agreement. She says she left the prostitution profession following what seemed to be a successful protest. But she says the initial optimism soon wore off, and, when three years passed with no assistance from the government, she gave up hope and resumed her old profession.
”We have no wealth or property and a family of eight to feed,” she says sadly. “It was all right when government and NGOs had provided aid [in the form of stipends]. [But once that ceased] we have to see to our own survival.”
Now men have once again started queuing outside the houses of Taruna Badi, Maya Badi and their female neighbors.
Mina Badi, 24, Maya Badi’s neighbor, says that she has also returned to the profession but has stopped finding prostitution difficult or uncomfortable.
“What is the use of shame?” she asks. “I felt shame in the early days, but it is no more difficult.”
She says that since her parents live with her, she goes out into the village to look for customers.
“My parents are old,” she says. “Therefore, I roam in the village the entire day, eat out and return in the evening.”
The Government Promises Not Kept
In response to the 2007 protest, the government created a high-level working group to carry out a study of the Badi community and to address its problems. According to the report, there are 8,341 Badi people living in 59 of Nepal’s 75 districts – almost entirely in the Far-Western and Mid-Western Regions.
On the advice of the committee, the government agreed to launch a special program for the collection of statistics related to the social, cultural, political and economic condition of Badis. It also agreed to provide: land; skills-development and self-employment programs and employment opportunities to improve income generation and standard of living; free education for Badi children; health services; citizenship with the caste of their choice; and declaration of the end of prostitution within the community.
But C.B. Rana, NBRSC member, says these promises have not been kept.
“Nothing has been fulfilled except distribution of citizenship to Badi people,” Rana says. “Nothing more has been done. Even the stipend given to the Badi students last year has been rescinded this year.”
Buddhi Bahadur Khadka, a member of the government high-level working committee, agrees that the citizenship cards aren’t enough.
The government allocated 30 million rupees, $416,000 USD, to the Household Development Program during the 2009-2010 fiscal year, according to The Kathmandu Post, a Nepali newspaper. Under the program, 1,400 Badi families received 15,000 rupees, $200 USD, for livelihood initiatives, such as raising goats and pigs.
But Rana says this is not enough to overcome barriers created by lack of education and inferior social status. Plus, there have since been cuts in government funding to the Badis.
“Rupees 2 crore [almost $280,000 USD] was earmarked for the Badi committee last year,” he says. “It has been cut down to 1 crore 25 lakhs [almost $175,000 USD].”
As a result, Rana says the Badis have been forced to return to begging and prostitution.
“Everybody started begging [after government help did not materialize],” Rana says. ”All the Badi families of Kanchanpur have been roaming from one village to another in order to beg. What can they do?”
And he says the women have been forced back into prostitution.
“[The] government said that prostitution and begging is wrong and hence to stop it,” he says. “However, they did not give any alternative solutions. In order to earn a living they had to resort to the old ways.”
A New Way Forward
Various local governmental and nongovernmental organizations in the Badi-inhabited regions have together banned prostitution, which has been openly practiced for the past five decades.
But Nirmala Nepali, member of the NBRSC and the government high-level working committee, says that women get around this by going to other villages without such restrictions.
Without employment opportunities to match this ban, Maya Badi says prostitutes’ lives are even worse because it is even harder to make a living.
“The state had agreed to rehabilitate the Badi community and provide employment, but these assurances have been limited to paper alone, and the flesh trade flourishes once more in almost all the Badi-inhabited areas,” Rana says.
A government subcommittee recently traveled across the region to assess the situation. Binod Pahadi, committee sub-coordinator, says the trip proved that the government has not implemented the agreement reached with the Badi community.
“We roamed across [the] nation,” Pahadi says. “Nowhere it is implemented.”
The subcommittee is making its recommendations to Parliament.
“The government is busy on its regular tasks,” Khadka says. “The implementation part has remain[ed] isolated now.”
NGOs are also involved now. In addition to the Community Support Committee’s efforts to advocate for Badi rights, Save the Children Norway, a child’s rights advocacy and development assistance organization, has been working to carry out the government’s free education initiative for Badi children. Some say that although legal provisions created by the government have made tuition free for Badi children, that some schools are still charging fees for various programs, such as sports and library.
Non-Badi women’s rights activists have also spoken up. Both Mira Dhungana, a lawyer, and Mina Sharma, a women’s rights activist, urge the government to fulfill its 2007 promise.
“The problem of Badi women is a grave problem amongst all women’s issues, which, if not appropriately addressed by the government, can manifest into a severe problem,” Sharma says. “Therefore, the agreement reached with the Badi community should be fully implemented and they should be provided with alternatives to improve their condition.”
Sharma says that if there is no action soon, women’s rights activists will get more actively involved.
“No woman joins the flesh trade out of mere choice alone,” Sharma says. “If the government does not provide the opportunity for Badi women to lead honorable lives like any other Nepali citizen and make necessary employment arrangements for them, we, all women[’s] rights activists, are ready to actively engage in a renewed protest movement for them.”
Taruna Badi says that until there is a change, that Badi women must continue to work as prostitutes.
“Selling our bodies is not a matter of choice,” she says. “It is a desperate compulsion.”
