Kamala Lama was six when she came to Kathmandu with her family and started working in a carpet factory. She used to wake up before dawn every day with her mother and sister and spin wool and weave all day till eight at night.

One day in 1997 when Kamala was nine, she was rescued by child rights activists and taken to a rehabilitation centre where she went to school for the first time. Kamala's mother wasn't very happy with losing her and her income but Kamala discovered her lost childhood-laughing, playing and learning with her classmates. She excelled in class and now, at 17, she is in college in Kathmandu majoring in mass communications and sociology.

We caught up with Kamala on a recent flight from Vienna to Kathmandu. She was returning from ceremonies to mark the 10th anniversary of RUGMARK, the foundation that rescued her and hundreds like her in Nepal, India and Pakistan. Nepal's success with rescuing and rehabilitating child carpet workers has been recognised worldwide and Kamala gave talks to students (see pic) and three press conferences, and her story was widely covered in the German media.

Today, most Nepali carpets exported to UK, America and Germany have RUGMARK certification ensuring that they are child labour-free and the proportion of children in the industry is now down to less than 10 percent. Returning from her visit abroad, Kamala looks out at the horizon over the Caspian Sea from her plane window and says with determination: "I know it's a long way off but I want to be a lawyer and give other children like me a chance so they don't have to work and can go to school."

Kunda Dixit