I personally believe that religious and cultural traditions should be respected and protected, but if you were to ask me ‘Is the welfare of one girl more important than the continuation of a specific tradition?’ the answer I always come to is yes. I could never support a system that abuses one child let alone a long line of them. This leads to the question of whether or not the girl is actually experiencing abuse and therefore if this tradition should be abolished. The conclusion that I have come to is that I do not think that the tradition of having a living goddess should be abolished because she is not personally experiencing any kind of neglect, the girl and her family are well cared for, she is not being forced to do hard labor for long hours.
A Kumari is certainly not neglected. Some might say her education is behind that of the other kids her age. That that problem was mostly rectified when a memoir, From Goddess to Morta, by ex-Kumari Rashmila Shakya, brought to light the lack of education for Kumaris, and the Nepalese government ruled to have more formalized education for the Kumaris. [1] Although she does not get the same socialization as she would through public schools, she does get time to socialize with carefully selected peers.
Being a Kumari also means that she and her family are much more financially stable. They all eat well and live in a beautiful palace. The father of one of the Kumaris said in the video that we watched in class that his daughter becoming the Kumari has given the family the opportunity to educate all of their children. I believe it is better to have all three children get an education and one of them be only marginally behind her peers academically than to not have the resources to educate any of the children in the family.
A Kumari also is not forced to do hard labor for long hours. Though her days of touring at festivals are long, they only happen a few days out of the year. Aside from perhaps being coerced into taking offerings of alcohol she is not forced to do anything, and being carried through the streets and allowing people to kiss her feet can hardly be defined as hard labor. Some might argue that having to sit still for long hours taking offerings and letting people kiss her feet is not natural for a young child, but it would certainly teach her an amount of patience that other children her age would not have mastered.
A Kumari’s social development may have been slightly delayed, but as an adaptable preteen she can catch up to her peers and acclimate to her new position as mortal. She is well cared for, given every opportunity, and is not forced into hard labor. In short, what a Kumari experiences is clearly not abuse, therefore this important tradition that teaches the masses to respect the strength of women and brings Buddhists and Hindus together should be preserved.
[1] Martinez Cantera, Angel. “Meeting Nepal’s Living Goddesses.” VICE. 1 July 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2015. .
Though I also agree that this tradition is far from abuse, I am inclined to advocate for some sort of a structured post-Kumari life process for the young girls. Even though they are probably able to go about learning to integrate themselves in society on their own, it might be interesting for women who used to be Kumaris to start some sort of program, group or alliance in order to ease this transition.
I agree this tradition is not harming the child to a point where other people need to step in and change a long lasting tradition. The girls are well cared for and their families as well. There is the issue of alcohol but from the video the mother seems to be helping her best to minimize the intake by saying to just sip on it, not drink it heavily. If anything the girls are becoming spoiled “brats” from all the attention they receive, which is hardly abuse. If anything the other children in the family experience more abuse than the girl who becomes the living goddess; they have to take care of their sister and perform other household duties. For example the older sister had to wait on the goddess and bring her food and other things when she rang for her. Also the brother had to carry the goddess around when leaving the palace. So for people to consider the young girl abused sounds silly to me in comparison to the other harsh child abuse conditions seen around the world. She will have to adjust to “the real world” when she is no longer a goddess but that is something quite obtainable.