On trail of Kerala nuns in Germany
Documentary shows troubles faced by girls recruited by church
In the mid-1980s media in Kerala was agog with reports about Catholic girls from the state being taken to Italy with the promise of a career in nursing ending up as domestic helps in nunneries in Europe.
The reports mentioned about one Fr. Cyriac Puthenpurackal as one of the kingpins of the racket.
The matter came to light when two girls belonging to a group of seven sent by the priest to Italy managed to return to the state after realising that the promised career in nursing was only a bait to lure them into a life in the nunnery.
Although some reports claimed that nearly 5,000 girls from the state were taken in this manner, the matter faded out from public discourse soon.
Long before the Italian connection came to the media limelight in the state, Sunday Times of London published a report in the 1970s about girls from Kerala being recruited for becoming nuns in West Germany.
The girls were recruited to tide over the acute shortage of nuns in West Germany as the increasingly affluent West Germany found it difficult to attract local girls for the God’s Call.
The London newspaper alluding the recruitment as something akin to ‘human trafficking’ created a stir internationally as Catholic Church was officially involved in the matter.
The bulk of the recruitment took place in the 1960s and early 1970s. When the matter came to the attention of the media here, 800 girls had already reached Germany.
Today, nearly 50 years later, journalists have embarked on a journey to trace the history of the recruitment and the person involved in the affair.
K. Rajagopal, a journalist with over four decades of experience in print and visual media, and Raju Raphael with a long stint in television joined to retrace the history in a 35minute long documentary film named Ariyappedatha Jeevithangal (Unknown Lives).
According to Mr Raphael, it's a collaborative work after extensive research and travel in Germany and many parts of India.
"Writer and journalist Jose Punnamparambil did the research mainly while Mr Rajgopal and I focused on the narrative strategy of the film," he said.
The film is an exercise in exploring a complex subject focusing on different dimensions of the process, says Mr Rajgopal.
“The attempt is not to apportion the guilt or find fault,” he said.
SUNDAY TIMES of London published a report in 1970s about girls from Kerala being recruited to become nuns in West Germany