9/18/2023 0 Comments Little lion a long way home movieThis is a big organised business going on in Nepal.’ What’s driving child trafficking in Nepal? The orphanages would change their names, identities and religion, and put them on websites – displayed like products. ‘After doing some research’, he says, ‘we realised that up to 90% of the children living in the orphanages did actually have families back home. Kanchan Jha, CEO of BTO’s partner organisation in Nepal, Sano Paila, told us more. There are around 15,000 children living in more than 700 registered orphanages in Nepal, and many more unregistered. Most ‘orphanages’ are in the top five tourist districts: Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur, Kaski and Chitwan. The brokers then traffic the children who are forced to live in fake ‘orphanages’ that exploit them to drive donations or income from tourists.They offer the parents an opportunity for their children to gain an education, and talk about the job opportunities available in the city. So, brokers from cities visit these families.Families in remote areas of Nepal often have little access of financial means to allow education for their children.How can parents give up their children? Here’s what I’ve learned from our partner organisations in Nepal, and the experts who work there: This is an issue that until recently, I didn’t have any idea about.’ Child trafficking to orphanages: Here’s what happens I’m so proud to work with Beyond the Orphanage, because we support children in Nepal who have been trafficked into ‘orphanages’. Saroo wasn’t technically an orphan, neither are many of the children living in such places. Watching Lion, I realised that this is the first mainstream acknowledgment I’ve seen of the plight of children living in ‘orphanages’ in the developing world. What many people don’t realise (and Lion shows just a glimpse of the horror) is how traumatic ‘orphanage’ institutions and voluntourism can be. Most worldly Westerners are familiar with the harsh reality of Saroo’s existence. Photo: Mark Rogers/Long Way Home Productions/The Weinstein Company The movie is about a five-year-old Indian boy who, after being adopted by a couple in Australia, sets out 25 years later to find his lost family. I don’t think I’ve ever been so affected by a film. ‘My mum, my best friend and I cried our way through the new release film Lion last night. Here’s a few words from one of our staff, on the movie that sparked this blog post, and a plea to anyone thinking about volunteering overseas: do your research. How does it feel, when you hear someone say they’re heading overseas to teach English in an orphanage for a week? At Beyond The Orphanage, our hearts break a little.
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