The Universal Right to Education: Why Children from the Musahar Community in Nepal Need Our Help

What would it be like to be born into ‘untouchability?’ Members of the Musahar caste in India and the Terai region of Nepal have faced terrible forms of discrimination and modern day slavery…simply for being born into a particular ethnic group. What constitutes this discrimination, and what’s the result? Most importantly, how can we help end it?

The Musahar community is an ethnic group that exists within the Dalit, or ‘untouchable,’ caste system and are one of the most disadvantaged and marginalised groups in the world. Despite attempts from the Nepal government to outlaw modern day slavery, caste-based bonded labour still happens in Nepal. Families of the same caste have carried out financial and social bondage for generations, with little assistance from the outside world to help them break the brutal cycle. This regime has been reinforced through acts of long-standing discrimination against the Musahar people, who are considered outsiders, and has had a major impact on the education of the community.

The Musahar community is one of the most uneducated groups in Nepal. Only about 21.9% of Musahars were literate to a basic level in 2011, and the community ranks the second to last (129th out of 130) ethnic group for literacy in the country. Of course, some children from the Musahar community do manage to go to school for grade one—but only about 8% of these children stay in school up to grade five…the other 92% drops out before the age of ten.

The level of poverty the Musahar community live in really impacts their access to education because although education in Nepal is free, indirect costs are a really big challenge for a lot of the families. They still have to pay for school uniforms, school supplies, exam fees, transportation, etc…but these things are not a primary concern for families who live in poverty, where shelter and food remains the primary concern. Education is not a current priority for families who struggle daily to put even put food on the table for their children.

Children from Musahar communities who do go to school may face discrimination and bullying from their teachers and peers. Most schools in the Terai are taught in Nepali instead of the familiar local language, which makes it harder for the kids to understand and alienates them from their peers. Children have said they are sometimes made to sit separately, in the back of the classroom, and don’t get to participate in group activities. They’re denied drinking water and have to eat lunch separately from the other students. Peers from higher castes emotionally and physically bully them. These forms of alienation provide one possibility as to why many kids drop out early on.

“Our children don’t understand the point of going to school because they don’t learn anything there, but there is no one to help us… so how do we move ahead?” (Father of former student, interview with Human Rights Watch, 2014)

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that all human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (which Nepal has signed, by the way) says that State governments must respect and ensure the rights of every child without discrimination of any kind. A child can’t be discriminated against for reasons of race, colour, language, religion, ethnicity, social origin, or birth status. Despite these international obligations, however, children of the Musahar community are discriminated against for more than one of these reasons. Access to a fair and safe education is a universal human right that every child is entitled to, but the children of the Musahar community are not getting it.

The discrimination of children Musahar community can’t be easily fixed overnight. But to really help out this community, we need to help to break the recurring cycle of poverty, bonded labour, and discrimination. This can happen through advocacy and by providing sustainable job options to the Musahar community. It also requires community issue awareness training and focus groups to help other castes understand why the discrimination is not okay. A specific focus on showing the community the benefits of education would aim to demonstrate and teach that education is a tool of empowerment and a critical step in breaking the cycle of poverty. Advocacy for the community should encourage children from the Musahar community to go to school—and stay there—so they can aim to succeed beyond the current debts of bonded labour and poverty.

Bibliography

Acharya, 1987; Dreze and Kingdon, 2001; Gupta, 2001; Jodhka, 2001; Nambissan 1996, 2004; Nancharaiah, 2002; Shah et al, 2006

Giri, 2012, The Bonded Labor System in Nepal: Musahar and Tharu Communities’ Assessments. Journal of Alternative Perspective of the Social Sciences.

Jha and Jhingran, 2002; Kaul, 2001; Nambissan, 2000; Probe Report, 1999

See the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, available at: http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

See the UNGA Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989