After performing the dance, most of these girls are obliged to sit in curtained
booths with the customers and entertain them. Often demands for sexual services
follow.
Though many of the so-called cabin girls find it hard to deal with at first,
they quickly become reconciled to the advances and wandering hands of drunken
men, and eventually most accept the vicious circle leading to prostitution.
The girls are encouraged to get their customers to drink more by letting the
men grope them. "It makes our customers happy, brings money to the owner and we
survive," said one girl, who refused to be identified for this article.
The waitresses are instructed by the cabin owners to get their customers to run
up large bills, but there is no protection for these girls when the severely
inebriated customer becomes sexually aggressive or violent.
Most of the girls who spoke with OhmyNews said they had migrated from villages
to the capital city to escape the poverty back home. They do not like what they
do, but with tears in their eyes they explain that they are working as cabin
girls to support their families back home, in the dusty rural villages of
Nepal.
"None of our family members know our real profession. They believe that we work
in decent places," one girl said.
Dancers earn about Rs 5,000 to 10,000 (US$70-$150) a month and are relatively
better off than the waitresses who earn only about Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000
(US$30-$45) in the cabin restaurants.
But tips can double this and sex for a night brings further monetary rewards
relative to the girl's youth and beauty. The money they earn can be very good
by Nepali standards.
With a deteriorating tourism industry, unemployment and ever soaring poverty
because of the armed conflict between Maoist insurgents and the government, it
is estimated that thousands of such girls are flocking to the city to work as
dancers and waitresses.
According to Yogendra Chaulagain, secretary of the Nepal Restaurant
Entrepreneurs' Association (NREA), about 30,000 women work in the capital's
restaurants.
The girls coming from the rural districts are not educated and have no job
skills so the cabin restaurant is the only option before them. But in many
cases, employment agents go to villages and lure the girls with offers of jobs
as waitresses in Kathmandu. The simple village girl, fed up with poverty or
concerned for her family's future, believes the agent's words and eventually
lands up in a living hell.
According to Chaulagain, the NREA did a rough survey about three months ago and
estimates that more than 75 percent of the women working in cabin restaurants
in the valley are between the ages of 18-25.
But Arpana Shrestha, a project officer with Maiti Nepal, a prominent NGO, has
entirely different figures. She estimates that over 50 percent of these women
are actually minors -- some as young as 10.
What makes the situation so nightmarish is that there is no certified data.
Many of the restaurants are not even registered; hence, regulating dance and
cabin restaurants is a problem.
Two years ago, the law was changed to remove curtains from the booths in cabin
restaurants but as yet the curtains remain closed all over the city. The police
do raid some of the restaurants and if a customer is arrested they will be
fined, but it is the girls who are alienated and trapped, unable to re-enter
mainstream Nepali society.
Meanwhile, many social observers say that shutting down the restaurants is not
the answer. They fear these girls living conditions will deteriorate further if
that happens. Suggestions include providing young women with various life
skills so that they have an option in choosing their professions. The
government should also enforce a code of conduct for such restaurant owners,
they say.
