It starts with a voice
The story of Phul Kumari
By Ben Thurley
Settle in for a long(ish) read about a woman I met recently in Nepal, Phul Kumari. About her community and their history. About their struggles together to overcome dispossession and injustice. Their efforts alongside our partner organisation Welfare Association for Children Tikapur (WACT) to claim and create for themselves lives of dignity and hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges.
And, to be honest, as you read between the lines, you'll see that it's also a long(ish) read about me and why I do what I do. Because I can think of no better way to spend my time on this beautiful blue planet than to share the stories of people like Phul Kumari and to play even a small role in work of solidarity and support with them.
Phul Kumari was a slave.
She is a Tharu woman, one of Nepal's indigenous ethnic minorities who, like many indigenous peoples around the world, have seen their lands stolen, their traditional ways of life attacked and undermined, and their social and economic status devastated.
In previous generations as the forests around Kailali (where Phul Kumari is from) were cleared for agriculture and malaria was progressively eradicated, much of the land on which the Tharu people had lived and worked was taken by settlers from the hills.
Unlike the Tharus, who had practised traditional and communal forms of land ownership and agriculture, these settlers were quick to formally register the land – providing a quasi-legal justification for the theft of Tharu land. Landless and vulnerable, Phul Kumari's family was forced into slavery.
She was born into a family of bonded labourers who for generations had worked in the fields and the household of a local landlord. In return for constant, and sometimes backbreaking, labour their "owner" would provide a place to stay and food to eat. A simple shack or hut on his land and just enough food to eat. Plus one item of clothing each year. Sometimes, if the landlord was generous, this might be a new piece of clothing, otherwise it would be cast-offs and hand-me-downs from the landlord's own family
The lives of bonded labourers were entirely dictated by the landlord. Their children would be allowed to attend school only on his say-so. The landlord would decide whether and when one of his slaves could visit a doctor or receive medical treatment.
And each of these expenses, too, would be added to the ever-increasing "debt" which the landlord created and calculated to further justify their enslavement.
This system of slavery, known as kamaiya, was only abolished in 2000, after years of campaigning and activism. Landholder groups and even parts of the government resisted to the bitter end.
The government granted some of the former kamaiyas small parcels of land to settle on, although this was generally marginal and agriculturally unproductive land, deep in the forest. This is where I met Phul Kumari and her commmunity. She was one of the lucky ones whose family had a formal title deed to the land they were living on. Roughly half of her commmunity did not have such title deeds because their landlords had refused to sign statements acknowledging them as former slaves. Without formal title to their land, they lived in fear that at any time the government could evict them and bulldoze their homes, rendering them landless once again. The government's promises of income support, training, and other assistance for former kamaiyas, have also never been fulfilled.
Deep in the forest, Phul Kumari's community is about two hours walk from the highway, from the school they send their children to, and from the nearest hospital or health post. The river rises during monsoon floods each year and they find themselves cut off completely for weeks at a time. When I visited, roughly half the village was absent; entire families had migrated temporarily to other parts of Nepal or across the border into India in search of work. They might no longer be formally enslaved, but their economic position is so precarious and their choices so limited, that in some ways their situation doesn't feel so different.
One of their main income sources is to gather firewood, flowers and other plants for medicine, to sell by the roadside. It's gruelling work that provides little income.
One of the ways I can quickly sense just how just how economically vulnerable a community is to ask about the pooled savings of their Self Help Groups. In most of the communities INF Australia's partners work with, people gather together in groups and contribute a small amount each month to build a pool from which members can draw, at no interest, to invest in new businesses, meet the costs of health care in an emergency, or support their families in other ways.
It's a powerful resource and in other parts of Nepal, women are often able to put aside 100 rupees (about $1.20) per month.
In very poor communities, women might only be able to spare 20 rupees each month (about 25 cents) after managing all the costs of daily life. The members the Self Help Group of which Phul Kumari is the chairperson were able to put aside just 5 rupees (about 6 cents) per month.
I sat with the group in 2022, about six months after they formed a Self Help Group and began planning how they wanted to work together to bring change for their community. They shared frankly about the challenges ahead as they began to plan and dream. The soil quality in the forest is poor, so their options to grow a wider variety or produce more food and cash crops are limited. They can't take up goat-rearing for income-generation as the wild dogs that roam the forest would attack the goats and put their children's lives in danger. They have begun discussing how to irrigate the fields around their houses but the distance from the river, along with the cost and complexity of developing irrigation channels, mean this is still something they hope to develop in future.
I asked the group, what was the most significant thing that had happened for them since the start of the project. Phul Kumari spoke. She said, "I can now speak to strangers."
I can now speak to strangers.
It seems such a small thing to claim as a victory. Such a tiny change to see as the most significant thing that WACT's community empowerment work had brought about.
But it is the foundation of everything. In finding her voice, Phul Kumari is asserting her identity and dignity after years of life in which it was pointless to speak. In her years as a slave, in her years of living on marginal land in the forest, selling firewood by the roadside, struggling to make ends meet for herself and her family, there was never a moment where her voice mattered to people outside her community. There was never a time in which people with power over her were interested in, or responsive to, what she had to say. Her hopes. Her aspirations. Her rights.
A woman born into slavery can now speak to strangers. A community who had been marginalised, isolated and ignored are now raising their voice.
It starts with a voice.
A voice raised.
Learn moreThank you for helping give women like Phul Kumari the chance to be heard.
Learn more about sponsoring a Self Help Group below.