KATHMANDU, Dec 23: Nepal’s leading anti-human trafficking activist Sunita Danuwar, 47, passed away at her residence in Jorpati on Monday.
Family sources said she was found unconscious in bed in the morning by her husband, who rushed her to nearby Nepal Medical College. Doctors pronounced her dead shortly after arrival, with cardiac arrest suspected as the cause.
Danuwar, chairperson of Shakti Samuha, was a prominent figure in the fight against human trafficking in Nepal. She was recognized by Fortune magazine as one of the world’s 50 exceptional leaders.
Sunita Danuwar awarded by the US State Department Award
Danuwar bagged a number of awards and honors for her distinguished contribution to fight against human trafficking in Nepal. Danuwar was honoured as US State Department’s 2018 Heroes for her role in the fight against human trafficking.
Similarly, she received a letter of honor from the US Special Operations Command, recognizing her contribution to combat human trafficking in 2012. Among other honors, she was awarded with the prestigious Ramon Magasaysay award for her group Shakti Samuha for the outstanding contribution in the field of women trafficking in 2013.
Born in a poor family in one of the rural districts, Dailekh, in western Nepal in 1977, Danuwar did not have the opportunity to go to school during her childhood. At the age of five, she and her family settled in Jammu and Kashmir, a state in northern India in order to escape poverty and deprivation. When Danuwar reached the age of fourteen, the family decided to move again, this time to Nainital, where she was trafficked and sold to a brothel.
A survivor of human trafficking, Danuwar along with her friend founded the Shakti Samuha in 1996 to raise awareness about the issue of illegal trafficking of girls and women. She began to spend a lot of time walking the streets of several Nepali villages to warn young girls and women at risk of being trafficked.
Over the years, she made remarkable transformation from a trafficking victim to one of Nepal’s leading social activists in her fight against human trafficking. She was actively involved in various social and philanthropic organizations as she pursued her career as a social activist.
Danuwar has been a board member of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women since 2008 and one of the Executive Board members of NGO Federation of Nepal (NFN). She also served as a chairperson of the Alliance Against Trafficking in Women and Children in Nepal (AATWIN) from 2009 to 2010. She was also chosen as a panel of the speakers of a high-level event on the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons.
