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Deuki is an ancient custom practiced in the far western regions of Nepal in which a young girl is offered to the local Hindu temple to gain religious merit. Girls become deukis either because their parents offer them in hopes of gaining protection and good favor from the Gods or because their parents sell them to wealthier couples seeking the same holy approval.〔Global Press institute:(Women Sacrificed to Gods Struggle to Rehabilitate, deuki Tradition Wanes in Nepal )〕 Poor families who offer up their daughters gain status and approval from their communities from the perceived sacrifice they have made. They are also relieved of the burden of finding husbands for their daughters. After offering the girls to the temples, neither parents nor couples who bought them provide any financial assistance or have additional contact with deukis. Because they are considered unfit for marriage and receive no money from those that dedicated them to their temples, deukis have to depend on worshipers’ monetary offerings to the temple. Left with insufficient income, no skills or education, and pressure brought on by the folkloric conviction that sex with a deuki can cleanse sins and bring good luck, many deukis are driven to survival sex, a form of prostitution in which sex is traded for basic necessities such as food or shelter.〔 Due to the law stating that Nepalese citizenship falls along the father’s line, daughters born to deukis, known as devis, frequently cannot become citizens of Nepal. Denied access to education and other social services, many devis become deukis. Though a legislative change in 2006 makes it slightly easier for deukis to get citizenship for their children if they can prove that the father is Nepalese, matrilineal descent remains unrecognized. ==History== Traditionally, deuki girls were offered to temples at the age of five or six–while they were still “pure”–as sacred temple slaves or temple dancers.〔 They performed various services for the temple to which they had been offered until they reached puberty, at which point they were expected to provide sexual services for male priests and worshippers.〔Kathmandu Press: (Tiny Hands On Offer )〕 The role of deukis in society was once quite different from its current stigmatized reality. In his dissertation, Robynne A. Locke describes the ancient deukis' status: As time went on, however, the patronage of the temples fell and this version of the system disappeared. Though deukis still receive some respect for their holy status, it is rarely expressed monetarily. Today, deukis are frequently deflowered by a priest immediately after dedication- still when they are between five and seven years old. Abandoned by their parents and all other support systems, these girls grow up largely on their own with no education or learned skills.〔 Anti-Slavery Society: (Child Hierodulic Servitude in India and Nepal )〕 In recent scholarship, some authors have asserted that the sex trafficking problem in Nepal has roots in traditions like deuki, which created the precedent of women being viewed more like objects and symbols than like people.〔 Others assert that the presence of deuki in communities simply leaves their populations predisposed to accept such practices. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Deuki」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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