SoRo class

It is sad to see the many different ways the poverty stricken and uneducated regions of the world are exploited, especially the children. Nepal is so poor that most of the recruiters for the predatory foreign networks are often locals who either take their relatives or abductees sent back to find a replacement. The animation helps add clarity and approachability to a bleak and difficult topic.

It's heartbreaking to see the plight children living in other parts of the globe, making me all the more appreciative of my uneventful upbringing in the US. Child labor is a practice that many Americans associate with the 19th century, but it continues to be widespread in many parts of the world, as is the case in Nepal. Educational opportunities are few and far in between for many Nepalese, who's short-term financial struggles rob their children of long-term opportunities for success. Many are kidnapped from their homes, or sold by their families to pay off debt with skyrocketing interest rates. The same also holds true for young female sex workers, who suffer an enormous amount of physical and psychological harm at the hands of their kidnappers and their clients. Economic pitfalls and a lack of access to education helps to perpetuate this cycle of abuse, as people are unaware of their rights in addition to lacking the education to advance economically in their societies. The Nepalese national government and several international rights groups are hard at work to combat these harmful practices, but they are fighting an uphill battle against an illicit institution that has ingrained itself in Nepalese society and culture. Great strides are being made, but much still has to be done for the youth of Nepal.

Teaching about human trafficking and child slavery can be very disconcerting and uncomfortable.  How much of the details regarding these horrific situations is age-appropriate and suitable for the classroom?  The BBC is reporting on events with sensitive stories to both give a human face to the story, while protecting the identity of under-aged victims (to read about the production of this comic, read Drawing the News.)  I encourage you to use your own discretion, but I find this comicbook format an accessible, informative and tasteful way to teach about human trafficking in South Asia to minors.  It is a powerful way to teach about some hard (but important) aspects of globalization and economics. 

As geographer Shaunna Barnhart says concerning this comic, "It moves from trafficking to child labor to pressures for migration for wage labor and the resulting injustices that occur. There's differential access to education, gender inequality, land, jobs, and monetary resources that leads to inter- and intra-country trafficking of the vulnerable. In the search for improved quality of life, individuals become part of a global flow of indentured servitude which serves to exploit their vulnerabilities and exacerbate inequalities and injustice. Nepali children 'paid' in food and cell phones that play Hindi music in 'exchange' for work in textile factories - cell phones that are themselves a nexus of global resource chains and textiles which in turn enter a global market - colliding at the site of child labor which remains largely hidden and ignored by those in the Global North who may benefit from such labor."

Tags: Nepal, labor, industry, economic, poverty, globalization, India.