Didi: Conversations on Nepali Womanhood (2008)

Undergraduates: Megan Hamilton, women from Princess Home in Kathmandu, Nepal

Faculty Advisor: Susan Page
Department: Art

---

I went to Nepal for a month to address the issue of sexual trafficking. Nepal shares an open border with India, and 10,000 Nepali girls are trafficked across it into the brothels of India each year. I worked with a women’s home called the Princess Home, built by an organization called Tiny Hands International. They seek to provide aid and resources to those who need it most in order to enable those individuals to sustain themselves. All of the women in Princess Home were brought out of numerous situations as a preventative measure. Without access to a job or the support of their families, these women were vulnerable—headed in a direction that could have quickly resulted in either resorting to or being trafficked into prostitution. All of them had the courage to seek something better for themselves. They call each other Didi, “sister.” These photographs are the result of our collaboration. I gave them digital cameras to photograph each other, themselves, and their daily lives. I worked with my own camera to photograph what I saw of the conditions that contribute to sexual trafficking in Nepali culture. Together our photographs create a conversation about the realities of Nepali women, the dangers and the hope. My photographs in juxtaposition to theirs tell the additional story of how outsiders see through a very different lens than those who live in the culture. Despite these different lenses, we shared a common passion to effect change in our communities and cultures.