Book Review: Conor Grennan, Little Princes, One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal, William Morrow Publishers, 2010.

Global Issue: Child Trafficking in Asia

Review:

Child trafficking is an issue of critical global concern among the world’s chronically poor.  Though some situations differ from country to country, the damaging effects are similar.  Conor Grennan’s book explains the current situation in Nepal:

“The decade long civil war in Nepal (1996-2006) claimed more than 13,000 lives.  The devastating economic consequences destroyed hundreds of thousands more lives in one of the poorest countries in the world.  In the remote regions of Nepal, the Maoist rebels, who had taken up arms against the king, used intimidation and murder to control villages.  They abducted children, forcing them to join the rebel army in the fight against the royal government.  Child traffickers, preying on villagers’ fears of Maoist abductions, deceived families by promising to take their children to the safety of the Kathmandu Valley, one of the few regions left in Nepal that was still free from Maoist control.  For this ‘service’ they collected vast sums from impoverished families.  The traffickers then abandoned the children in Kathmandu, hundreds of miles from their mountain villages.  These children, who could be as young as three years old, effectively became orphans.  There are tens of thousands of children still missing in Nepal.” (p. ix)

Grennan describes what abandonment means practically – the children are often dumped at houses of people associated with traffickers among the teeming millions in Kathmandu. There is usually no sanitation, almost no food, no clothing, no education and little hope of survival. Many children are sold as child slaves.  Some international and government Not For Profit (NFP) organizations are committed to the rescue and care of these children.  But the need far outweighs the safe houses. The political and economic situation fuels the on-going evil of the traffickers as does the desperate poverty and illiteracy of the families. As a result the traffickers continue to operate with impunity.

Nepal’s scenario mirrors so many similar situations in other countries.  But Grennan documents the problem from his own personal perspective, describing his own experience.  Although the subject of the book is heart breaking, Grennan’s description of his odyssey in mission is written in superb narrative style. He intersperses humor with pathos and intimate glimpses into the children and their families coupled with sensitivities to the cultural and political nuances of Nepalese life and tales of the costly sacrifices involved in rescuing children and locating their families in the remote mountain villages of northern Nepal.

Grennan’s odyssey began when he went to volunteer in Nepal for three months at a NFP orphanage called Little Princes in 2004. There he became exposed to the tragedy of these “lost children of Nepal.”    At the end of his second three month stay at the orphanage, the disappearance of seven additional children he and his colleague had tried unsuccessfully to rescue became Grennan’s catalyst to make the rescue of trafficked children his life goal.  He returned to Nepal and established his own orphanage and a NFP called Next Generation Nepal.  Its goal is to reconnect trafficked children with their families.   The book is his story of all that was involved in his and collegial team members’ efforts from 2004 to 2009 to deal with Nepal’s child trafficking tragedy.   

For all those committed to justice in the global fight against trafficking the book is inspirational as well as sobering.  The odds seem stacked in favor of evil but each example of a child rescued and given safe haven or restored to his or her family brings hope.  That hope is rekindled with the “miracles” Grennan recounts in the search and rescue attempts.  His book is a compelling read. 

- Dr. M.L. Codman-Wilson, 3/6/12