A shocking practice — poor families in Nepal selling their daughters into slavery — and a surprising solution.

Unable to make ends meet, many families in western Nepal have been forced to sell their daughters, some as young as six, to work far from home as bonded servants in private homes. With living conditions entirely at the discretion of their employers, these girls seldom attend school and are sometimes forced into prostitution.

NOW travels to Nepal during the Maghe Sankranti holiday, when labor contractors come to the villages of the area to "buy" the children. There, we meet the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation, which is trying to break the cycle of poverty and pain with an enterprising idea: providing desperate families with an incentive to keep their daughters - a piglet or a goat that can ultimately be sold for a sum equivalent to that of their child's labor.

The organization says it has brought thousands of girls home to live with their families, but many cultural and political challenges still stand in their way.

This is part of NOW's continuing series, "Enterprising Ideas," on innovative and sustainable solutions to world problems.
NOW's Web site (www.pbs.org/now ) will provide a slide show of images from Nepal, personal stories of some of the girls sold into slavery and ways you can help make a difference from across the world.