Empowering Women of Nepal

The hotels and restaurants in the district are normally run by family members. To assist in their business and household chores the majority of hotels, restaurants and domestic homes use child labor. Most of the children are brought from the poor settlement areas of Pokhara Municipality.

On a visit to the Mustang area in 2006, EWN spoke to many of these children. Most of the children told how their parents were not able to provide them with food, education and care and sent them to this hard place with the assumption that their children would get such things from their employers. Some of the children very aggressively told how they had been sold by their parents for money. Most of them are deprived of education and health care. Physical and verbal abuse is common and they are also very vulnerable to sexual abuse. They normally work more than 15 hours a day, starting early in the morning and working until late at night. Their hands and feet are swollen and bloody. They look very dirty and smell and it seems they have not washed for months. A child worker complained that even at the night her employers locked her inside the room, fearing that she might run away.

Child labor restricts children’s potential to become productive adults. It deprives them of good health, education and takes away their future. It is an affront to social justice. Child labor is prohibited by the government of Nepal.

Our Mission Statement 

Our mission is to declare the Annapurna Trekking Route a child-labor free trekking route.

Aims & Objectives

	Provide help and support for children rescued from child labor.
	Stop child labor practices by involving local community leaders and government
	bodies.
	Educate the community about the negative impact of child labor on tourism.
	Identify working children who can either be returned to their families or given
	shelter at EWN's children's home in Pokhara.