Kathmandu, Sept. 11 -- For Tara Kanaujiya, mornings mean business. Right at 6am every day, she is up and starting her day. She is serious about starting her day right, which means she's not wasting any of her time. As soon as she wakes up, she readies her big, old washing machine and starts segregating towels, bedsheets, and pillow covers into separate buckets for washing.

The 55-year-old was just 16 when she was married to a boy who lived near her locality in Dhobichaur, a 15-minute walk away from the bustling streets of Thamel. And for the past 30 years, Kanaujiya has been helping her husband out with his family business. The Kanaujiyas are laundry workers, a profession that has been passed onto them-as part of the Hindu caste system-f...