As both governmental and nongovernmental agencies raise their voices against child labor, the trend to send these child workers to school has increased, says Tarak Dhital, spokesman for Child Workers in Nepal Concerned Centre, a leading nongovernmental child rights advocacy agency. But in most cases, employers enroll children in the schools but don’t send them regularly. They also neglect to provide them with the necessary books, copies of exercises, school uniforms or time to study.
One out of every five households in Kathmandu has a domestic child worker, he says. Employers prefer to hire children because they can pay less for their work, can easily control them and can lure them with the opportunity of education. Children have reported cases of severe violence, such as having hot food thrown on them, being burned with a hot iron or being taken advantage of sexually.
“Political, economic and social power has harbored child labor,” says Dhital, explaining that people with political power and social influence want to perpetuate domestic child labor for their own comfort.
