“I was so afraid when the earthquake started – I thought I was going to die. Our house and my school were both completely destroyed. The year before, the Child Rights Ambassadors came to our school. They gave us knowledge and courage, and taught us about girls’ rights and how girls get tricked and sold,” says Phulmaya. “Girls here are forced to work much more than boys. I work for several hours both before and after school. I get up at dawn and feed our ani­mals before lighting a fire in the stove and preparing breakfast. After school I fetch water, wash clothes, cook food and wash the dishes. If I have time left over before bed I do my homework. I never have time to play like boys do,” explains Phulmaya.
   “But still, I’m lucky. Many girls don’t get to go to school at all, while their brothers do. The parents don’t want to pay for their daughters, because the plan is for the girls to be married off young and move in with their husband’s fami­ly. Some girls are even forced to get married when they are still children themselves.”

Phulmaya had always felt that it was unfair to treat girls and boys differently. But she didn’t know that it was a vio­lation of her rights. Not until the Child Rights Ambassadors brought the World’s Children’s Prize to the village. "The Child Rights Ambassadors taught me that girls and boys are equal, and that we girls have the same rights as boys. That we too have a right to a good education and should be treated well and not forced to get married against our will. That made me really happy!”
The Child Rights Ambas sa­dors who came to Phulmaya’s village live in a home run by Maiti Nepal, an organisation that fights against child sex slavery. “The ambassadors taught us a lot about trafficking. About how traffickers come to poor villages, just like ours, and trick parents into selling their daughters. The parents think their daughters are going to get a good job abroad or in the capital city, Kathmandu, and send money home. Instead the daughters become slaves in brothels and are forced to do awful things.”
   Phulmaya and her school friends learned that around twelve thousand girls disap­pear from Nepal in this way every year, mostly to India. The vast majority never come home again.
“This is so terrible, it has to be stopped! When I met the ambassadors I knew straight away that I wanted to become a Child Rights Ambassador too, travelling round to schools and fighting for girls’ rights and against the slave trade in Nepal.”
But then something hap­pened that put a stop to Phulmaya’s plans to become an ambassador.

The earthquake

“It was a Saturday. I was sit­ting eating lunch with my mother and a friend when suddenly everything started to shake. Glasses and plates crashed to the floor. Cupboards and shelves col­lapsed, the TV fell... everything smashed. I pan­icked and I was sure we were all going to die. My mother was shouting that we had to get out, out! And we just managed to get out before the whole house collapsed and turned into a pile of rubble. All the neighbours came run­ning out of their houses as they collapsed too.
   “It felt unreal. Everyone was crying and screaming. We hugged and tried to com­fort one another. My family was lucky, because everyone made it out, but my friend’s grandfather didn’t manage to get out before their house fell down on top of him. He died. Many people in Nepal died in the earthquake.”
   Phulmaya and her neigh­bours had to sleep on the street for the first few months after the earthquake.
   “There were fifteen of us, lying huddled on the ground. We had to share the blankets. Everyone was sad and crying. Some people said that tigers would come and find us there, unprotected. I was so afraid.”

School destroyed
Phulmaya’s school was destroyed too. The walls had collapsed and the desks, books, computers and all the other resources were buried under the rubble.

“I was afraid that I would never be able to come back to school.”
At first, the people in the village struggled to find enough to eat, since every­one’s food stores were buried under rubble and the fields were swamped with mud.

“We were hungry, and we had to clear up. We built a lit­tle shack from tin and plastic, and we still live there. It’s OK, but I don’t really like it. It’s cramped and I have to sleep on the floor. It’s the rainy season at the moment and the shack leaks, so everything gets wet. I can’t wait till our new house is ready.”

While Phulmaya’s family and all the others were clearing their ruined houses, they were also trying to get the village school going again. After a month of hard work, the students were finally able to come back.

“It felt great to see all my friends and start learning things again. Before the earthquake our school was really beautiful, but it isn’t any more. The outer walls are gone, and the books, and lots of other things. But it still feels good to be back.”