SINCE being sold to an Indian circus owner at the age of five, Kumari Lama had spent much of her life performing a high-wire act in which she gripped a rope with her teeth and whirled 40ft above the ring without a safety net.

Forced to perform the stunt at least five times a day, she was in a state of constant panic that she would fall.

After 11 years of performing the “dental trick”, as it is known, her worst fears were realised. A sharp pain in her jaw as she turned in circles around the big top made her relax her bite. She plunged more than 30ft and was taken to hospital unconscious.

“I couldn’t walk for three months afterwards,” she said, “but they made me do it again as soon as I could.”

Kumari is one of 17 girls who were rescued last month from the Raj Mahal circus, one of India’s biggest, where they had been made to perform dangerous stunts under the threat of savage beatings. They were freed by the London-based Esther Benjamins Trust, which reunites circus girls with their families and educates them at centres in Nepal.

Last week Kumari and four other girls described their relief at being rescued and said they had lived in fear of being starved if they did not please the owners. They said they knew of two performers who had died after falling from wet trapeze bars in the monsoon and had also witnessed the beating of a boy who later died from his injuries.

Like many circus girls, Kumari went into a life of servitude after her parents were bribed or tricked. “An agent came to our house in Nepal to take me away with nine other girls and said I would be given fine clothes and treated like a film star,” she said.

“I was living with my three brothers, my father, who is a labourer, and my mother, who is disabled. They said this was my big chance.”

She was taken first to a small circus in Kerala, in southern India, to be trained before being sold on to other circuses.

“There was a string on a fan and you had to hold on with your teeth. It was very high and I was frightened. It made me feel giddy and sick,” she said.

Her friend Sanu, 19, who was eight years old when she was sold to Fateh Khan, owner of the Raj Mahal circus, was returned to her parents last month. Campaigners were given the contract setting out the price of her childhood.

This document states that her father was to receive 1,500 Nepali rupees (about £12) to hand over his daughter for 12 years. She was forced to balance on slippery high poles, she said. In 11 years of captivity she was allowed outside the circus only once, to visit a temple.

Another girl, Sushila, 19, said she was anxious that no other children should suffer as they had, but said she did not blame her parents: “They are poor and couldn’t feed us. They didn’t know what the circus was. They were misled.”

Some of the parents may have been fooled but others just wanted their daughters off their hands. Girls in Nepal and rural India are often considered to be a financial burden and their parents handed them over not just for cash but also to avoid the cost of feeding and clothing them.

Several girls said their parents had come to take them home but had been sent away by the owner, who warned that they must first repay the “advance” that they had been given.

Their rescue is a remarkable achievement for the trust,which was formed nine years ago by Philip Holmes, a retired British army colonel, after his wife Esther committed suicide. She had blamed her depression on childlessness.

Holmes moved to Kathmandu, Nepal, where he plans rescue missions and runs rehabilitation, training and education projects for the circus children and their families.

He said his latest raid, carried out with Indian police and the Childline India charity, had almost wiped out child trafficking in the Hetauda district of Nepal.

Six agents have been jailed and the manager of the Raj Mahal circus has been arrested. A spokesman for Khan, its owner, declined to comment.

A survey of 30 Indian circuses found 282 children under 14 and many as young as five. Holmes has discovered that many girls are forced to marry older circus men to bind them to the business for ever.

“It’s forced marriage and they’re being forced to have sex . It’s rape,” he said.

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