When girls and women are inducted into the nunnery, their hair is shaved off with an electric razor just before they don maroon robes.

"Hair is our most treasured jewel as a woman," said Jigme Yeshe Lhamo, one of the longest-serving nuns at the Druk Amitabha Mountain Nunnery. "Our head is shaved though to break this deep attachment.”

The nuns were a conspicuous sight on a recent 5,200-mile bicycle trip from Kathmandu to Ladakh, India, with a mission to bring a message about the value of girls and the dangers of human trafficking. In this region, girls are often viewed as a burden and female fetuses are aborted, or girls are married off young or sold.