Tharu people of the Terai lowlands

The Tharu people are indigenous people living in the Surkhet Valley in the west mountain region, Chitwan Valley, Dang Valley,Deukhuri Valley,Sindhuli and Udyapur in Inner Terai Valleys of Nepal and the Terai plains on the border of Nepal and India.
They work usually as farmers or peddlers.

Recent medical evidence supports the common belief that the Tharu people, having lived in the swampy Terai region for centuries, have developed an innate resistance to malaria that is likely based on an unidentified genetic factor.













An innovative program in Nepal is helping to free young girls that live as modern day slaves.

Unable to make ends meet, many families in western Nepal have been forced to sell their daughters, some as young as six, to work far from home as bonded servants in private homes. With living conditions entirely at the discretion of their employers, these girls seldom attend school and are sometimes forced into prostitution.

PBS NOW traveled to Nepal during the Maghe Sankranti holiday, when labor contractors come to the villages of the area to "buy" the children. There, the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation is trying to break the cycle of poverty and pain with an Enterprising Idea. They're providing desperate families with an incentive to keep their daughters: a piglet or a goat that can ultimately be sold for a sum equivalent to that of their child's labor.

You can view this PBS NOW production, "Daughters for sale", at the link below (you may have to paste it in your browser):

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/414/index.html