Nepal is a small land locked Himalayan Hindu kingdom with different caste systems where slavery was being practiced from ancient times for many years. The then Prime Minister in 1926 who had visited some European countries declared the abolishment of the slavery from the country. The slavery was first introduced by the so-called Rana regime who ruled Nepal for 104 years and though declared abolished was practiced till15th July 2000 not in the name of slavery but as unfreed labor. However, there are different types of unfree labor, most of them are children and women under different occupations. The country re-restoring democracy in the year 1990 formally declared unfreed labor as freed in Nepal. In the beginning of the millennium it is of course a very positive step of the government to make every citizen as human beings by freeing them from the so-called slavery. However, only freeing them from the dark cave is not sufficient unless they are treated as a real citizen of the country. Revolt against slavery and unfree labor is therefore, needs education and job alternatives to get it overcome in a sustainable way in the context of Nepal.

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   Nepal, a Himalayan kingdom sandwiched between its two great neighbors namely china and India is still an agricultural country where more than 80% of the people depend on agriculture and about 90% live in rural areas. After having of better experience of suffering the feudal system in practice from time immemorial and Zamindari system, a sort of land lordism the serfdom the small farmers and landless farm labour who used to be the proper tillers were forcibly deprived of the share they deserved to the farm production. So they were always poor, helpless, exploited and downtrodden. What they were given from the farm production was hardly enough to meet even their bare needs. When they run out of money for their social functions or family needs they borrow money from the landlord or Zamindar. The cohabitant rate of interest manipulation of fingers, inequality conditions of bond and written instrumental usually put them never intangible bond in which their generation get trapped for the whole life. This is sort of slavery or serfdom to which the peasants are to be tied up for undefeated to period.

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Prior to 1926 there was a system of slavery and unfree labour in Nepal. They were sold and bought as goods. They were called Baandhuwa, in vernacular, which means the goods that were mortgaged for ascertain amount of money. The system of slavery was the product fender system in which the then ruler or the king was the representative of supreme symbol of the system under which the landlord. Zamindar and birtawal (who get a large scale of land from ruler) get support in carrying their injustice, torture, labour exploitation, violence to the extent that their whole families were not spared from hard working.

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During the Rana Regime when Chandra Samser was the prime Minister, he took up the historical task of freeing the slave by making the slavery illegal. Although his producers introduced the task, Prime Minister Dev Shamser, but his short stay in the throne the task was not undertaken. So, the credit of freeing the slaves went to Chandra Samser. But show come an autocrat rules Chandra who was very shrewd, cumin; always suspicious of any body could venture such a progressive gigantic task. It was perhaps due to the democratic movement being taken place in several countries of the world and that Chandra wished to put a position / impression upon British Government that he was progressive ruler as he wanted to have good relation with British government for member of reasons.

In the way Chandra Samser abolished the system in 1926 and freed some 60,000 slaves from the bondage of slavery. Some of them masters set their slaves free voluntarily without taking any compensation, some slaves paid the price for their liberty to their masters out of their own earnings. However, most of the masters of slaves were compensated from the endowment funds attached to the lord Pashupatinath temple. This was the reason why those emancipated slaves were called the devotees of Lord Pashupati Nath (Lord Shiva).

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This is another kind of slavery which having its ground in the Western Nepal deeply rooted in Terai districts like Kailali, Kanchanpur, Bankey, Bardia and Dang. Actually the system is believed to have started in Dang and spread out to other districts. They are mostly landless farmers without any alternative means of earning except surrendering their labour to the owners of land or zamindar. As the farming is the seasonal work so instead of taking the risk of being jobless time and again the zamindar that they call farmer compelled them to work as Kamaiya for the zamindars.

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The word "Kamaiya" basically means hired workers, who work for the employ or zamindar and receive nominal wages in advance and they and their family worked for all over year. The type of wage some time they get in crops or money. But as a matter of fact it is not that simple. The Kamaiyas who generally belonged to Tharu community, owing to this abject poverty are bound to take loan from the zamindars for one or another social reasons which is generally understand as "Sauki" for which they with their families are provided sheds near the zamindar's house to live and work for the masters. The debt i.e. Sauki (loan) taken from the zamindar are ever increasing and all the members of the debt or family are forced to work for zamindars with no limit of time and kind of work. In this way this generations are forced to work at normal wages or no wages or for the money of Sauki whom their forefathers had taken and even did not know whatever their debt could ever be repaid. As they were born with the debit burden so they even did not know about the debit if it was ever taken or which of their forefathers had taken the loan. This is called the traditional bonded and the debt bond is that which the kamaiya had indebted in his lifetime. That was the most detestable form of slavery that took the traditional form of debit � bondage and continued till recently that was already abolished in 1924 by the then Prime Minister Chandra Samsher by making it illegal.

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It was surprising how in the presence of existing such law Kamaiya form of slavery could come into operation that remained hundreds of years. In spite of repeated expression of the resentment against the system among the elects and political leaders and also hushed opposition from the kamaiya themselves under the impression of democratic practices taking place in the country. But the elected government of Nepali Congress did pay any attention to it until last year in 2000 session the opposition parties in the Lower House unanimously decided to table adjournment motion if the government did not take a decisive action to out law the kamaiya system of slavery. This compelled the government to abolish the system with official declaration on 15th July 2000.

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This time also the same unscrupulous mistake of overlooking the need of rehabilitation of those freed Kamaiyas have been committed as was committed in 1926 when the slaves were freed without any consideration of their rehabilitation. Keeping kamayas were made illegal as a result of which the zamindars/landlords exiled them outright, because keeping them any more with them meant for them a punishment against the violation of the gore decision.

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Thousands of Kamaiya families together with their infants, children flumed on to the streets, nearby jungle under the roof of the sky leaving there small huts and shads they were allotted to by their masters where they and their forefathers lived for hundreds of years. Now they were helpless with no means to have the both ends meet and protect their children and themselves from cold sun or rain. Even some NGOs took pain mobilize collect and some food grain distributed to them for some time. But that was just a temporary relief.

Being pressurized from the political parties, NGOs, social activist, government assured them of a small piece of land for each family. But the number of such families was so great that it was not possible to provide land to each of them, although attempt is being made. So many of them encroached the forest areas to sell down, some came to street, others strayed about to suffer unemployment, hunger, wants of their children who died without any medicines and even deaths particularly education. It is said that 17000 children of the Kamaiya families have no access to schools, thousands of their children joined the child labour force. Some of them being helpless are reported to have gone back to their old masters to request to take them back in their services. It is for sure that if the government really wants the Kamaiyas to be free from bondage and get rid of the subhuman life condition such freedom must be accompanied with the minimum requirement of rehabilitation; there must be a provision compensation for exploiting them for hundreds of years.

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This is another kind of slavery in the form of bonded labour in which particularly child workers become the victim. Although this type of child labour is present in every field where children are hired, but it was highlighted in case of those children who are encouraged to work and hired as child labour in carpet factories in Kathmandu valley. Before a decade or so when the carpet industries experiencing a boom period, exports were ever increasing the factory owners and companies were more interest to hire children to work behind the loom. The double advantage of hiring children is firstly, the tiny fingers of the children that can tie knots on a very tight looms comparatively faster and secondly they are easily available at cheaper wage, willing easy to control and exploit. They are considered as uncomplaining labour.

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These children most of whom belong to the poor and deprived families in the rural areas living in difficult situation are approached by carpet factory agents called Naike (leader) who pursues the parents to send their children for work. It means not only extra incomes for the family but also one less mouth to feed. But those families, which in financial crisis become agree to take on loan some bigger amount of money and bonded to work as long as the debt is not paid back. This is what is called a (debt) bonded labour. The money comes from the carpet factory owners who forces them to work for longer hours (minimum 12- 15 hours) in an stuffy and cramped room with little or no remuneration, no medicine when sick and food provided just to survive. Torture, caning and putting them under the influence of fear, panic, treat to beating has been the everyday practices.

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To give an impression to the people, concerned organization and the government official that the factory is free of child labour, a board with a notice "child labour is prohibited here" is hanged outside the main gate, but behind the locked door one can find the number of child workers working hard for the owners. There are repeated incidences of such scandals forcing the children to work in locked rooms and even some of them chained for months and months together. They are suspected to run away. Some of the children in such solution are just slave and others are debt-bonded child labours. According to a survey there are 40 thousand bonded child labours only in Nepal in all fields of employment and equal number of them are reported to have migrated to the best towns of India to work as similar type of bonded child labour.

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Apart from carpet factories the bonded labour including the child labour which is the residence of feudal system and which has dominated the Nepalese society in different forms for the past hundred of years. Although prohibited by the constitution of Nepal, children Act 1991, the bonded child labour can be found in practice in different pretexts both in agricultural and non-agricultural fields as well as organized sectors such as trade and industries and unorganized sector like domestic child labour etc. A great number of child labours work as a bonded labour in rural communities. Some of them are sold out to the zamindar / the landlords just to pay off the debt incurred by the families. Others are born bonded with debt. This is because they are born such of bonded labour who have been sold to clear the debt. To let it continue in any forms and sector in a country where democratic government is being practiced is indeed not only a cure.

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The bonded child labour has been one of the several hazardous labor as declared by the ILO Convention 182 on Child Labour must be eliminated by the Year 2005, from Nepal as committed by the National Program. But there are still many shortcomings in the building necessary infrastructures like legal, institutional, human etc. Effective strategies have to be identified and adopted to fight the child labor problems and promote Child Rights Convention (CRC) as far as possible within the available social and economic conditions of Nepal.

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From the above facts makes it clear that the slavery that existed in the Nepalese society during 1924 and after does not present any information that slaves ever revolted against their masters in one way or the other. In the former case the then prime minister took the initiative himself to ban the slavery and even to provide the amount of compensation from the endowment fund of religious charity.

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In case of Kamaiyas, very few are found to have organized in a process of revolt or protest against their Zamindar/Landlords. Their poverty and ignorance which are function of the feudal system at the time never allowed them to risk of getting into worst condition, since there were not any alternatives. The revolt in feeble way that was shown by the freed Kamaiya was the situation of their mistake that they were afraid of and shrank from playing into revolt. Kamaiyas after being freed are out under the open sky without allotment of assured piece of land as they are "out of frying pan into the fire". So they have stood against the delay in their rehabilitation. Therefore, in the context of Nepal, the lesson learnt is that the government without proper homework has freed Kamiayas made them in a more critical condition. They are freed but looking again to work as kamaiyas which will take them back to slavery again. Revolt against slavery and unfree labor to get it overcome needs education and job alternatives to these poor and injustice groups of people of Nepal.