My Jesuit friend the late Charlie Law, writing in 1996 from his missionary post in Nepal about baby-girl harvesting

Writing from the mountain kingdom, on the roof of the world . . .

. . . where Sherpa guides take you to Himalayan heights and Ghurka soldiers live out retirement from Her Majesty's service. Charlie's heading into his fifth decade there. He's an old friend from Loyola days, a Jesuit true and blue, full of thought.

Says the Jesuits are "going into the bachelor's level." He means the Jesuit "college" in Kathmandu, Nepal's metropolis, where they will offer degrees in social work and environmental studies.

They worked out a social work syllabus with the help of a college "principal," Sister Mary Alphonse, Ph.D., and her vice principal from Bombay, who arrived wearied from the trip and promptly went to bed.

Charlie attended a UNICEF workshop on discrimination against and rights of women and children. A UN fellow from Geneva told the workshop that economic development had failed because religions have been ignored! Ethics, values, and spiritual truths had been lost in the shuffle. The guy sounded to Charlie like the pope.

The region's religions were on hand: Hindu, Buddhist, Moslem, Sikh, tribal religions, Christianity.

As one of 42 delegates, Charlie drew on St. Luke’s gospel, the pope on "the dignity and vocation of women," and the Jesuits' recent document on women.

Women are on Charlie's mind. First, those two who trekked from Bombay to work over his social work syllabus, putting it in great shape. And second, their and his interest in the prostitution problem in Bombay, where an estimated 100,000 Nepali girls are working the oldest trade.

Parts of Nepal are so deeply in the pits economically and morally that some families use the daughters as a cash crop, peddling them to Bombay "pimps, agents, madams, assorted middle-men, and dealers," Charlie wrote. "You really feel less human to hear it all.”

Some fathers in fact are impelled by the profit motive to prefer girl to boy babies, which is a major switch.

Meanwhile, girls from the Jesuit college in Kathmandu teach English to students at a nearby poor kids' school, helped by a Jesuit International Volunteer from the U.S. The Jesuit students gave certificates recently to these students in a ceremony that involved much handing of certificate from person to person, all in good cheer.

Quite a contrast from the dismal life of a Bombay prostitute, Charlie observes. His new social work program will place field workers in hostels or a sort of half-way houses for redeemed prostitutes, who are not always welcome back.

Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.