Kathmandu, Feb. 28: Orphanages and homes are made into a profit making business by many in Kathmandu. And, the gullible children seeking shelter in those institutions are used, by foreigners and Nepalese, only as means for attracting funds, a recent investigation unfolded.
A group of twenty children in last one and half months were juggled into the hands of three different guardians and were “rescued” twice by police from pitiable conditions. Children Act 1992 strongly forbids the transfer of guardianship of children between homes, between persons or from a home to person and vice versa. The Act clearly states transfer of guardianship could be obtained only with a legal permission from government appointed Child Welfare Officer under the circumstances of death or lose of mental balance or bankruptcy or for legally proved involvement of previously appointed legal guardian in criminal activities. A legal guardian can also retire from guardianship if the person is unable to meet his legal obligations of bringing up the child. In case of the twenty children, guardianship was transferred between two homes without completing legal proceedings.
“I suspect monitory transactions between the homes, because the children made good profit for the orphanage administrators. At the cost of the children, the administrators bought luxuries for themselves,” says Hari Shivakoti, the house-owner, at whose place at Gongabu the twenty children were kept for about four and half months on rent under the banner of Nepal Orphan, Handicapped and Disabled Service Improvement Association (NOHDSIA). The organisation is registered with Social Welfare Council.
The NOHDSIA Chairman Nar Bahadur Raut, representing unanimous consent of the organisation’s executive body members, entered an agreement with Nanda Kumari Kulu of Yatkha to transfer the guardianship of all the twenty children under the home’s shelter. The agreement paper, drafted on a plain A4 size paper was signed between the two parties on December 31, 1999. The agreement paper ends the claim of NOHDSIA over the children but allows to maintain contact with them and shifts the full responsibility of their guardianship to Kulu.
“A paper signed like that has no legal meaning, it is illegal to transfer guardianship that way,” says advocate Sharda Subba.
“Now I realise it was a mistake. My intention was only to help the children find a better home,” Kulu says with a claim that before entering such agreement she did not consult a professional lawyer. However, the children did not stay with Kulu instead they were transferred to Helping Hand home situated at Sanepa (the place was previously run as Hotel Lalitpur, but later it was rented to the two foreigners on monthly rent of Rs. 100,000 for running a hotel with a new name) that is run by Evelyn Dunn, an Indian and Edwin Gill, an Australian. Helping Hand is an unregistered institution therefore not allowed to carry out any activities within Nepal. Nevertheless, the organisation has despatched appeals for monetary help through newspapers and Internet and has collected funds from individual donors as well as through sale of paintings and sculptures at its art gallery at Thamel. (A registered social organisation by the same name is also operative in Nepal.)
“Since the agreement paper was prepared in Nepali, the foreigners refused to sign it,” says one of the executive members of NOHDSIA asking for anonymity. Kulu also claims that the three parties “orally” agreed to the arrangement that Kulu would sign the agreement but the children will be transferred to Helping Hand, which will bear responsibility of guardianship.
The children’s stay there did not last long. On January 20, 2000 police intervened to return the children back to their previous home as a complaint registered against Nanda Kulu by Evelyn Dunn that the former made claim over the children without any legal standings. Nevertheless, the police intervention failed to return the children back to their previous home, they remained with Helping Hand.
Kulu, who also chairs a registered social organisation to work with children, agrees that she demanded the children back when the foreigners threatened to return to their respective countries leaving the children “homeless once again”. Later, a former NOHDSIA executive member who was involved in both the first and second agreement signed by NOHDSIA, also demanded the twenty children to shelter at her newly registered home. In spite of those demands and police order to return the children to their previous home, they were kept with Helping Hand till the Women Cell at Kathmandu Valley Police Office “re-rescued” the children last Friday.
“Unless the government develops proper mechanism to check on conducts of these homes, children are always at risk,” says Inspector Gita Uprety with the Women Cell. The police sources charge that both the homes were mistreating the children and abusing them as “objects to advertise” to attract funds from within and outside the country. It is reported that the girl children were sexually molested by NOHDSIA Chairman Nar Bahadur Raut, beaten by Sushil Dutt, an Indian who also carries a business card that identifies himself as chairman of the organisation, and were maltreated by General Secretary Bed Prasad Adhikari.
“Sir used to make us beg for vegetables and collect donation from shops,” says nine-year-old Lyangma Tamang. But, she complained, the vegetables thus collected were never served to them. “Sir and his friends used to consume all.”
The children also relate their bad experiences living at Helping Hand home. Pradip Shrestha, 11, and Man Bahadur Lama, 10, complain that home failed to provide medical help when they felt acute pain and Krishna Thapa was not taken to doctor when he sustained deep wound that resulted in loss of blood and serious infection. Pilot Lama, 13, complains of being locked away for blowing a balloon. While, Raj Kumar Raut complains of being underfed.
American Reverend Joseph Richard, former co-worker of Dunn and Gill and a psychological counsellor, claims of having observed “violent behaviour, mental instability and sexual problems” and expresses concern about “improper threats to children” from both.
Eddie Gill was not available to defend allegations made against him, Evelyn Dunn refused to be quoted, while Nar Bahadur Raut is under police investigation.