SOLD Patricia McCormick

 The novel Sold is the story of Lakshmi, a 13 year old girl who lives in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal.  Living happily with her Ama (mother) and baby brother, Lakshmi appreciates her rural life and finds happiness in the simplicity of her environment.  This happiness is complicated by her drunken stepfather, and exacerbated by the at times hard life she leads as an agriculture worker. At the whims of the weather and her step father’s gambling addiction, Lakshmi struggles to remain hopeful.

 After one particularly hard rainy season, Lakshmi’s stepfather tells her that she is going to be sent off to work, but she soon finds out that he lied and that she was actually sold into the sex trade.  After being smuggled across the border to India, Lakshmi then finds out that she has to pay back her debt before she can leave Happiness House, the brothel where she was sent.  Alone and coerced, Lakshmi is forced to give herself up in order to help her family and be free once again.

 A landlocked nation, Nepal claims a distinctive natural and cultural climate with its ancient heritage and the Himalayas as an awe- inspiring backdrop.  While it is rich in cultural and scenic splendor, Nepal remains one of the world's poorest countries. It is struggling to overcome a turbulent political and economic legacy and manage a peaceful transition to stability.

 Nepal is home to a population of 31 million people, with more than 24 percent of the population living in poverty.  The Nepali Government struggles to provide adequate healthcare and education to its people, especially those in remote regions.  Resources are limited, and the systems used to distribute those resources often struggle to keep up with demand.

 Health posts and schools in rural areas are often non- functioning or severely under- functioning. This is partially due to the sheer difficulty of reaching remote communities and supplying them with educated doctors and teachers.  In Nepal, 48 of every 1000 live births are malnourished. In many cases this leads to their death.  Maternal mortality rates are high due to weak health systems, with limited access to emergency care, skilled attendance and the overall poor status of women, especially in remote areas.

 Formal education is a privilege not widely shared by the population. Today, 24 percent of children do not complete formal primary education.  In rural areas like Laksmi’s, literacy rates are reported at 9 percent for women and 37 percent for men. The extended civil conflict has had a major impact on health, education and employment, with school closures and strikes.

 The major religion of Nepal is Hinduism.  Within Hindu culture, worshippers are divided by a strict caste system which separates different social strata. The caste one is born into cannot change; the only way to improve one’s standing in life is to lead a life of good work, or karma, so as to be reborn into a higher caste in a next life.

Like in many other cultures around the world, women in Nepal society are often seen as inferior to men. Stuck within the confines of their domestic sphere, there are strict social practices and customs that limit a woman’s sexuality, independence, autonomy, and value.

 Members of the Hindu community in some parts of Nepal still practice Chhaupadi, a custom that forces women to live in the stable while menstruating and just after giving birth. They are forbidden to cook and eat with their families.  This system comes from the superstition of impurity during the menstruation period. In this superstitious logic, if a menstruating woman touches a tree it will never again bear fruit; if she consumes milk the cow will not give any more milk; if she reads a book about the goddess of education, she will become angry; if she touches a man, he will be ill.

 A combination of Nepal’s social, cultural, and political realities make it one of the largest areas for human trafficking in the world.  Although reliable data on the scope of the issue is difficult to gather, Unicef reports that as many as 7,000 women and girls are trafficked out of Nepal to India every year, and around 200,000 are now working in Indian brothels.

 Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of individuals for the purpose of exploitation. It is a violation of their rights, their well-being and denies them the opportunity to reach their full potential.  While recent research has yielded information on the nature of child trafficking specifically, little is known about its magnitude. The International Labor Organization’s 2002 estimation of 1.2 million children being trafficked each year remains the reference.

Lakshmi and her story were written to shed light on these atrocities.