Swastika Thami was only 16 when she got married. She was in the fifth grade. After the marriage, she stopped going to school. Hers is not a unique case in the locality.
Many girls and boys from the Thami community living in Doramba Shailung and Khadadevi rural municipalities of Ramechhap district marry in their early teens. When they are married, they invariably drop out of school.
“I wanted to study but there was no way I could go back to school after marrying,” says Swastika. She is 18 now and lives with her husband and his family in Daduwa village of Doramba Shailung.
Rime Thami says child marriage is continues to be prevalent in his community because most of its families are dirt poor.
“They do not have the financial wherewithal to raise and educate their children,” he says. “Girls are married off early and boys are sent away to work.”
Dek Thami, a young Thami man, says poverty barred him from pursuing higher education.
“Your quest for education is meaningless when you are oppressed by poverty and deprivation,” he says.
There are around 350 Thami families in Shailung Doramba and Khadadevi rural municipalities. They live in tight-knit groups, largely uninfluenced by the outside world.
Nearly 600 Thami children go to various primary schools in their villages.
“The majority of them do not make it beyond grade seven,” says Tara Bahadur Moktan of Daduwa. “Until a couple of years ago, the Thami community didn’t even send their daughters to school.”
Dhandhwoj Lama, education department chief of Shailung Doramba Rural Municipality, says hardly 10 percent of the Thami children clear tenth grade.
Thami children are quitting school not just because they marry early. Jit Bahadur Thami says they also leave school because they have to support their families.
Many Thami families in Ramechhap are involved in farming, but the crops they grow hardly last for three months. So parents send their children to work in cities.
“Some parents see the children of their neighbors bringing money from cities and they are also encouraged to send their school-going sons and daughters to work,” says Purna Bahadur Thami.
