Child Rights and The Living Goddess "kumari’

Becoming Kumari is the beginning of her abnormal life.  She will be deprived of a normal childhood.  She won’t have the same freedom, schooling, social activities as everyone else of her age have.  She can’t make friends with whomever she wants or dress as how she wishes. In short, she can’t do many things, even basic things like running on grassland and enjoying the sun. Even though the court has spoken for the rights of Kumari, it doesn’t seem that it is going to safeguard her rights. Keeping Kumari has been our tradition and we are not able to stop this system. People want to keep this system alive for the sake of religion or culture. No one is thing of a poor girl who hasn’t seen enough of this world. As soon as after her birth she is made in to a confinement for the sake of the culture. She has to sacrifice her childhood without knowing anything.

On 20 November 1959 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a much expanded version as its own Declaration of the Rights of the Child. This date has been adopted as the Universal Children’s Day.

 The initial document consisted of the following stipulations:

        1. The child must be given the means requisite for its normal development, both    materially and spiritually.

       2. The child that is hungry must be fed, the child that is sick must be nursed, the child that is backward must be helped, the delinquent child must be reclaimed, and the orphan and the waif must be sheltered and succored.

       3. The child must be the first to receive relief in times of distress.

       4. The child must be put in a position to earn a livelihood, and must be protected against every form of exploitation.

       5. The child must be brought up in the consciousness that its talents must be devoted to the service of its fellow men.

So have we been able to comply with all these things. The answer is big NO. Being a Kumari doesn’t give a child to develop freely. She has to go through many tensions in her early age. A huge number of people come to her and bow their head. She must be in a great dilemma about what people are doing. She is just an innocent child. She doesn’t know anything but people are worshipping her as a goddess. She is merely a little girl who got nominated by her family for the selection of Kumari at the age of four. And since her installment she is locked up in the house (except for several occasions every year) and worshipped – has her feet touched and kissed – by thousands of people for good fortune through the years. People find god in her. That’s just what people believe.

If people were to find god for real, they didn’t have to select an innocent girl and keep her in a place depriving the innocent girl of all her childhood rights. God is what we believe in and it’s in our heart. What we think is god. We don’t have to find anyone to take the position of a god. It’s within us. Humanity is the greatest god. So if we really respect humanity and believe in god then we have to bring huge changes in the way we choose Kumari and give her the freedom that every child gets. I don’t mean that the system of Kumari is to be abandoned. But there are many things that we can change to protect the right of Kumari and keep our rich culture alive.