|
 When scouts came looking for children to join the big tops in
India, she was captivated.
"The circus sounded like a magical place, so I wanted to go,
too," she recalls in a teaser for a documentary about Nepal's
first and only circus, made up of rescued victims of human
trafficking.
For decades, Nepali children have been targeted by circus scouts
from India where the spectacle, which has been dying in many
other countries, still draws crowds.
Often sold by their parents hoping to give them a better life or
to escape poverty, many children in the most exploitative
circuses are deprived of schooling, forced to learn punishing
routines and beaten if they fail, activists say.
"The trainer ... if we couldn't do it, would hit us with a
twisted wire," says another young woman in the film, "Even when
I fall".
The feature-length documentary, which is still in production,
tells the story of three Nepali women who met as teenagers after
being rescued from circuses in India, and focuses on their
attempts to overcome a childhood spent in forced labor.
One of them was so young when she left Nepal that she did not
know her real name.
Not only does the film chronicle their efforts to reconcile with
the families that sold them, it also shows how they establish
Circus Kathmandu with 10 other survivors of human trafficking
and the bonds that are forged among the group.
REGAINING TRUST
Since 2010, the troupe has performed in Kathmandu Valley and the
border towns of southern Nepal's Terai plains, but also at
Britain's Glastonbury Festival in 2014, enthralling audiences
with their acrobatics, aerial skills and storytelling.
The film's producer Elhum Shakerifar - who hopes to raise 30,000
pounds ($43,000) by April 7 to cover the edit and some of the
post-production costs - said the title, "Even when I fall", was
inspired by the circus performers' trust in each other.
"If you're part of a circus and you're performing with someone,
flying through the air, you need to have really strong
communication skills, you need to trust that person (and) know
they're going to catch you," Shakerifar said.
[to top of second column] |
"(The troupe) have really turned around something that enslaved them
and made it into a strength and a skill," she told the Thomson
Reuters Foundation.
The film's co-director Sky Neal spent many years as a circus
performer before volunteering at a refuge in Nepal for children
rescued from exploitation in Indian circuses.
"Sharing my own circus stories and pictures and videos, I was able
to help the young women to see that what they did was amazing – that
being from the circus wasn't something to be ashamed of," Neal said,
adding that this connection laid the foundations for the film, which
has been five years in the making.
Nepal's national human rights commission says human trafficking
appears to be a thriving industry in Nepal.
In a report published in 2014, it estimated nearly 29,000 people had
been trafficked or close to being trafficked, based on reports by
the police and non-governmental organizations.
Neal said many women who survive being trafficked and exploited are
often rejected by their own families and face discrimination within
their communities.
"Women returning from circuses are no different. There is no value
given to them for the artistry they have gained. They are
stigmatized and marginalized," Neal said in a statement.
"Watching the women of Circus Kathmandu bravely re-establish
themselves as circus artists despite this was awe-inspiring."
($1 = 0.6940 pounds)
(Reporting by Katie Nguyen, editing by Alisa Tang. Please credit the
Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters,
that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property
rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more
stories)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
