On April 25, 2015, an earthquake struck Nepal, killing 8,000 people, and injuring 21,000. The resulting chaos was fruitful for organized criminal elements, and hundreds, perhaps thousands of women were smuggled into India where they were sold into forced labor and prostitution. The Nepalese government, overwhelmed by the impact of the ‘Gorkha’ earthquake has largely been unable to protect them.
On response, 500 Kung Fu nuns are on a bicycle riding mission to raise awareness about human trafficking.
The Kung Fu Nuns are members of the Druk Amitabha Mountain nunnery in Nepal. It was formed a generation ago, when a group rebelled from the 800-year-old Drukpa order, over the subservient roles that women were expected to hold. The nuns started practicing Kung Fu in 2008, modeled after nuns from Vietnam receiving combat training that was previously used by Viet Cong guerrillas.
Dressed in the Kung Fu uniforms popularized by martial arts movies in the 1970s, the nuns practice for two hours a day. The practice imparts remarkable conditioning, and confidence, which is now being used on the ride.
Brigit Katz has the story for the New York Times.
Dressed in vibrant orange biking gear, they weave through traffic and pedal up mountain slopes, persevering through blistering heat and heavy rains. The nuns’ bicycle yatra, or pilgrimage, began in Kathmandu, where their nunnery is located. By the time they reach their final destination of Ladakh, India, they will have biked more than 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles).
During stopovers in remote villages, the nuns lead prayers and impart teachings of peace and respect. Part of their mission is to promote environmental awareness; because diesel fumes are melting Himalayan glaciers and causing respiratory diseases among residents, the nuns have been encouraging villagers to rely more heavily on bicycles. When the nuns visit areas plagued by violence — like Kashmir, for instance — they also deliver lectures on the importance of diversity and tolerance.
Foremost on the nuns’ agenda, however, is the promotion of female empowerment.
Though women and girls in the region became particularly susceptible to violence after the Nepal earthquake — with economically devastated families often handing their daughters over to traffickers who promise a better life abroad — gender inequality has long been a pervasive problem among the countries that envelop the Himalayas. India, Nepal, and Pakistan — all of which are destinations for the bicycling nuns — consistently rank on the bottom tier of indices measuring women’s access to education, political empowerment, and health.
We are spreading these messages: girls also have power, they are not weak, said Yeshe Lhamo, a 27-year-old nun who is participating in the yatra. In these regions, they listen to and respect religious teachings, so for a religious person to say that diversity and equality is important, maybe people can make this their spiritual practice too.
The yatra has thrust the nuns out of monastic life and onto the frontlines of the human trafficking crisis. A few weeks ago, as they prepared to cross into India, Lhamo and her fellow cyclists saw police detain a man who had been leading a group of young girls across the border. He claimed he was taking them to India to get medications that were not available in Nepal. Police told the nuns that this person was more likely seeking to sell the girls into prostitution.
We were very happy that police [were] asking many questions and the girls are getting saved, Lhamo said. We want to tell people more and more about [traffickers ’ tactics].
In their mission to save the girls of the Himalayas, the nuns face steep obstacles: poverty, suffering, cultural norms that have long devalued females. Change, if it comes, will likely come slowly. Lhamo knows this, but she also believes in the nuns’ ability to plant the seed of gender parity in communities where women and girls are at risk — and, perhaps more importantly, to inspire women and girls to believe in their own worth.
Of course, one Bicycle yatra cannot change the world overnight, she said. But our message of diversity may inspire one person, one little girl, one mother. Sometimes one person can make a big difference. A mother can change her whole family. One little girl can do amazing things.
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ESPN Brazil documentary on the Kung Fu Nuns.
