Nepal appointed a new "living goddess" today - a 3 yr old girl. She was selected from a group of 2-4 yr old girls after the judges checked the horoscopes of all candidates and looked for physical imperfections."The living goddess must have perfect hair, eyes, teeth, and skin with no scars, and should not be afraid of the dark...As a final test, the living goddess must spend a night alone in a room among the heads of ritually slaughtered goats and buffaloes without showing fear. Having passed all the tests, the child will stay in almost complete isolation at the temple, and will be allowed to return to her family only at the onset of menstruation when a new goddess will be named to replace her."
Girls usually have a difficult time readjusting to the real world when they return to their families. And to top it all off - "Nepalese folklore holds that men who marry a former kumari will die young, and so many girls remain unmarried and face a life of hardship."
Doesn't this tradition violate child rights? In my mind it does. To read the whole article click here.
5 comments:
I had actually just read this article a few minutes before reading your post. It's absolutely horrible. My first thought after I saw it was how many, many ways Satan has come up with to convince people to accept evil things, break up the family and ruin people's lives any way he can. I feel so sorry for that little girl, especially since I have a 3-year-old and I can't imagine subjecting him to that.
I know this is off the subject, but my curiosity has the best of me. I keep my soap box by my bed so when I get up, some mornings my feet don't hit the floor, they just land on my soap box. Is that where you keep yours too? ;-)
That is CRAZY!
Living in isolation for years huh . . . .
mmmmmmmm.
i had a post i've been holding off on doing that was something to this effect. maybe i'll do it this week. i just have a lot of soap to go through :)
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