NHRN
Kathmandu, July 18:  Mukta Kamaiyas or freed bonded labourers are celebrating "Mukta Kamaiya Diwas", a day marking the end of their age-old slavery and bondage, on Sunday.
On Shrawan 2, 2057 B.S (July 2001), the then Sher Bahadur Deuba led government had declared thousands of Kamaiyas living in the five districts of the mid and far western region free from the misery of having to serve as a bonded labourers or servants in the houses of wealthy landlords to pay the "loans" their ancestors had taken from them.
With the announcement, the government had also promised that the freed Kamaiyas will be provided with lands and timber to build houses and pardon them from all the loans they were entitled to pay.
But a decade after being liberated, the freed Kamaiyas are forced to live a very difficult life as the government has still not fulfilled its promises of providing proper rehabilitation and relief package.
NGOs, right organisations and Tharu community leaders working for the welfare of the freed Kamaiyas have been demanding all along that the government fulfill the promises it made to the Kamiyas at the time of freeing them from age-old slavery and put an end to the practice of keeping Kamlaris, female slaves, by introducing strict laws.