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  • Girl Rising is a feature film that highlights the stories of

  • nine young women around the globe,

  • and the critical role education plays in each of their lives.

  • The following chapter features Suma, a young woman from Nepal

  • Suma plays herself in a story written by

  • celebrated Nepali author, Manjushree Thapa

  • Girls who go to school see immediate benefits beyond the

  • things they're learning.

  • Being a student enhances their status in the community.

  • It improves their health.

  • It makes them safer.

  • But in the developing world,

  • getting an education is not what people expect girls to do.

  • Girls are expected to work.

  • Expected to fetch water.

  • To care for younger children.

  • To get jobs...

  • or worse.

  • 80% of all human trafficking victims are female

  • It happens to girls like Suma.

  • Suma's parents didn't send her to school.

  • They sent her to work.

  • It's called kamlari.

  • I write songs to remind myself that my memories are real.

  • And often, because there's so much sadness behind me,

  • what comes out is sad.

  • Both of my parents were bonded as kamlar

  • and kamlari in their childhood.

  • That's the way things have been around here.

  • That's the way they have been for the poor.

  • You have to bond yourself to a master,

  • otherwise, how will you live?

  • Suma - Bardiya, Nepal

  • This was the house of my first master.

  • My mother and father bonded me just

  • so that I would have somewhere to live and enough food to eat.

  • I was six years old.

  • Faggu Tharu was a landlord and a miller.

  • He made me work from four in the morning to late at night.

  • I had to clean the house and wash the dishes and go

  • to the forest to fetch firewood.

  • When I wasn't minding the goats, I had to mind the children.

  • The goats were nicer.

  • The daughters made fun of me because my clothes were torn.

  • They teased me.

  • They beat me.

  • I wanted my mother and father to take me back.

  • I wanted them to let me stay at home

  • and go to school, like my brother.

  • But when I thought about how poor they were,

  • and how much they too had suffered, it made me feel weak.

  • I couldn't ask.

  • This was the house of my second master.

  • Janak Malla wore a uniform to work.

  • He and his mistress of the house were very hardhearted.

  • "Unlucky girl," they used to call me.

  • "Ey, unlucky girl, do this," they'd shout.

  • They made me sleep in the goat shed, and wear rags,

  • and eat scraps from their dirty plates.

  • I can't really talk about everything that happened

  • to me here, but I will never forget.

  • This is where I began to write songs.

  • Only the songs got me through.

  • Thoughtless were my mother and father

  • They gave birth to a daughter

  • They gave birth to a daughter

  • My brothers go to school to study

  • While I, unfortunate, slave at a master's house

  • It's a hard life, being beaten every day

  • This was the house of my third master.

  • I was 11 years old when I arrived

  • at Chaitey Tharu's house.

  • I had been a kamlari for five years.

  • It wasn't as bad here.

  • I mean, it was bad because there was a lot of work,

  • but there was a lodger in that house,

  • a schoolteacher called Bimal Sir.

  • He changed my life.

  • Bimal Sir convinced my master and mistress

  • to enroll me in a night class.

  • All of us would gather after finishing our day's work,

  • and we would learn to read and write.

  • I loved that night class so much.

  • It was run by social workers for girls just like me, kamlaris.

  • We would also talk to the teachers

  • about what it was like to be a kamlari.

  • And as we talked we began to realize

  • that bonded labor was - and isn't it?

  • Slavery.

  • The teachers who ran the night class began

  • to go from house to house.

  • There is a small girl working here.

  • I am here to take her. Why?

  • They wanted to liberate us.

  • One teacher, Sita didi, told my master

  • that he was breaking the law by keeping me as a kamlari.

  • She talked about the law against bonded labor,

  • and the law about children's rights,

  • and the law on labor rights,

  • and the law against domestic violence and trafficking.

  • She talked to him about justice and injustice.

  • And she demanded that he set me free.

  • My master said no; once made, a bond couldn't be broken.

  • Sita didi didn't give up.

  • She kept arguing.

  • She came back day after day - and in the end, she led me home

  • to my mother and father.

  • I am my own master now.

  • I have no mistress.

  • I was the last bonded worker in my family.

  • After me, everyone will be free.

  • I feel as though I have power, I feel like I can do anything.

  • And I have important things to do.

  • Inside this house is a girl like I was.

  • Away from her parents,

  • working morning to night,

  • wanting so badly to be free.

  • We have come to this house, the house of her master,

  • to say, "We know you have a kamlari working for you.

  • You must set her free."

  • I've seen where change comes from.

  • When it comes, it's like a song you can't hold back.

  • Suddenly there's a breath moving through you, and you're singing!

  • And others pick up the tune and start singing too.

  • And a sweet melody goes out into the world and touches the heart

  • of one person, then another, and another.

  • The practice of Kamlari has been illegal in Nepal since 2000.

  • Now, with the help of girls like Suma,

  • it's finally coming to an end.

  • For Suma, it is not enough that she herself is free.

  • She's using her education

  • to make sure all girls are getting to school.

  • Because Suma knows that when parents have to choose,

  • they usually choose to educate the boys.

  • So girls have less opportunity, less freedom, and less education

  • than the boys they grow up with.

  • 33 million fewer girls than boys are in primary schools worldwide

  • This means the girls suffer more hunger,

  • more violence, and more disease.

  • 75% of AIDS cases in Sub-Saharan Africa are women and girls

  • It's a simple fact.

  • There is nobody more vulnerable than a girl.

  • In one year, 150 million girls are victims of sexual violence

  • ONE GIRL WITH COURAGE IS A REVOLUTION

  • GIRL RISING OWN THE FILM TODAY

Girl Rising is a feature film that highlights the stories of

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