With its simple mud homes, low roofs and string cots, this tiny settlement near the Indian border looks like any other in this part of western Nepal. Only the women suggest something different, garishly painted even in the morning's early hours.
They loiter on a slope or around the tea stall, waiting for men, who banter, negotiate, then slyly walk one of the women to one of the village houses. The women's children play nearby and watch.
Caste has become destiny for many communities, defining their profession through generations. But few people have inherited so vexed a destiny as the Badis of Nepal.
Their profession is prostitution, passed from one generation to the next.
While many Badi women have left the sex trade, others keep falling into it, driven by hunger, a lack of alternatives and the stigma of being a Badi.
The Badis, who number tens of thousands across western Nepal, are one of 36 castes who make up Nepal's untouchables, said Suk Lal Nepali, a Badi who runs Social Awareness for Education, or SAFE, a nonprofit organization that works with the Badis. But, he added, "We are untouchable among the untouchables."
Sunni Nepali, now 22, began working as a prostitute four or five years ago.
Her body supports 11 relatives, including her parents and two younger brothers.
Each encounter -- she has up to five a day -- earns her anywhere from US$0.70 to US$2.15. She loathes the work, she said, but sees no choice. She has no education. Besides, she asked, "Who's going to marry me? I'm already involved in this."
The Badis did not start out as prostitutes when they migrated to Nepal from India some three centuries ago.
They made drums and other musical instruments, fished and danced and sang.
They would go to the homes of landlords, or zamindars, to entertain at social ceremonies, in return for food.
In time, the zamindars claimed some of the girls as concubines. They would use them, then abandon them when they had children, said Ramesh Nepali, a Badi. Many Badis have taken the surname Nepali to avoid the disgrace of being a Badi.
In this patriarchal society, fatherless children have few rights. It can be difficult to register their births, and thus get them citizenship, school admission and even the right to vote.
Already nonentities in society's eyes, daughters followed their mothers into prostitution, often encouraged by parents no longer willing or able to work themselves. Badi men lived off the women's work.
Social welfare organizations have tried to coax the women into other jobs with some success, said Suk Lal Nepali, although he noted that even his own sister slipped into prostitution three years ago. He says only 150 women remain in prostitution, down from 587 a decade ago.
Still, the whole population remains stigmatized.
About half the 50 families that lived in this settlement have migrated to India in search of work as maids or guards, leaving perhaps 250 Badis in Muda.
In part, that is a result of pressure from Maoists waging an insurgency against Nepal's constitutional monarchy.
They are also against prostitution and have ordered the Badis to stop their work.
There is pressure, too, from the government, carried out by the army and the police.
"We can no longer be prostitutes," said Kokali Nepali, 30, a mother of four.
"Before, it was accepted, it was open. Now there is pressure from all sides -- society and government. We cannot do it openly."
RSS