06/13/2005

Sunita (pictured here) came to Nepalganj with her three children from Jumla, a remote district of western Nepal. The Maoists came to Sunita’s home four years ago, threatened her husband and ransacked all their belongings. Her husband was targeted for being a government school teacher; the Maoists are opposed to government school education and want it replaced with their own curriculum called the “people’s education.” Sunita and the children fled to Nepalganj while her husband relocated to the Jumla district headquarters, which remains under government control. According to Sunita, her husband continues to teach, but each month he has to give up to half his salary to the Maoists. Since the start of the Maoist insurgency, more than 160 schoolteachers from all parts of Nepal have been killed as the result of the armed conflict, and an estimated 3,000 teachers have been displaced from their schools, fleeing their villages in search of security in district headquarters.