"I agreed to go to Mumbai as I was promised a good job there, but I ended up at a brothel where I was forced to have sex with more than 40 people in a single day," says Maya, who was just 12 years old when an old man forced himself on her at the brothel.
At that age, she wasn't aware that she had been 'sold' up until that incident. In hindsight, she considers herself too naïve to have given in so easily, but the child in her had never thought she would fall prey to a trafficker.
"The Gharwalis convinced me that I would be able to get out of the brothel if I had sex with as many people as possible in a day. With that hope I spent an entire year at that place," she explains.
She was living with her family, who had left Nepal and was living in Utrakhand, India at that time when she was trafficked to Mumbai. Maya, who was forced to quit her studies due to poverty, is now studying in Grade 12 whilst taking shelter at Maiti Nepal, an NGO working against trafficking.
Maya, now 20, says that her life has changed after she was rescued from the brothel and brought back to Nepal. "I just wish that one day I will be able to forget all that happened in my life," she adds, her eyes glimmering with hope.
n n n
In 2012, Kala* went to Kuwait to work as a housemaid. She had all the documents – passport, work permit, training certificate – ready with her to work there legally. She chose to go and work in Kuwait but an agent helped her find a job there and get work permit from the Government.
Upon reaching Kuwait, the Nepali agent there sent her to one of the houses in Saudi Arabia. Afterwards, she became a 'hostage' in that house and was confined there until a Nepali community rescued her some months ago. She didn't have the legal papers to work in Saudi Arabia.
"I was going to Kuwait but I have no idea why I was sent to Saudi Arabia," says Kala. "It was only later I realized that I had been trafficked to Saudi Arabia as the agent got more money by sending me there instead of Kuwait," she adds.
Kala, 21, originally from Sindhupalchowk, is trying to file a complaint at the Crime Division with the Nepal Police. But the department doesn't look into trafficking cases related to foreign employment. So justice seems like a far-fetched idea, an ever-elusive hope.
Superintendent of Police at the Crime Division, Dinesh Adhikari, said that such cases don't come under their jurisdiction. "She has obtained a work permit from the Government and events suggest that she was trafficked using a formal channel. We are not authorized to handle these kind of cases," he explains.
On the other hand, the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) says that Kala has taken individual work permit and nothing can be done in such cases where identifying the agents is a difficult task. As per the existing labor law, the DoFE doesn't handle trafficking cases if it is via a formal channel of migration.
Changing trend: From forced prostitution to foreign
employment promises
If we trace back the history of trafficking, the vicious cycle of poverty and unemployment seems to be the major reason behind it. Majority of trafficking cases are directly related with forced prostitution. Women were even trafficked by their fake husbands, with promises of fake jobs, and exploited in sex trade in India.
At present, the cross-border trafficking has shifted to overseas with some trafficking cases to India. The entire migration process has been exploited for the purpose of trafficking and smuggling women and children to South Asian and Middle East countries. African countries like Kenya and Tanzania are also emerging as hubs of trafficking where significant number of women and girls are trafficked or smuggled yearly to work in dance bars and casinos.
A recent study by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said that the traffickers are using formal channels of labor and migration to smuggle women and children to many foreign countries. The fraud involved in foreign employment and the exploitative working conditions of migrant workers in the destination countries are the major factors contributing to the rise of trafficking in Nepal.
The porous border between Nepal and India has always been considered as a contributing, and significant, factor for increasing trafficking. Nepal has opened 110 countries for foreign employment, but a significant number of women and girls are trafficked or smuggled yearly via India. Women even fly to the Gulf countries to skirt the ban and the age bar of 25 and that poses a grave danger of being trafficked.
Remittance, the mainstay of Nepal's economy, contributes to almost 30 percent of country's GDP. More than 3.8 million Nepalis are employed overseas, mainly in the Gulf States.
Need for harmonizing foreign
employment and trafficking act
As the current trend of trafficking is closely related to migration, it doesn't seem like trafficking law alone can play an effective role in prosecution, protection, rescue and repatriation of survivors. Due to different laws on trafficking and foreign employment, survivors are facing numerous problems in the prosecution process.
The police don't register any of the cases that are related to foreign employment as they are working under the trafficking law, while the labor law of the country doesn't address trafficking cases. The DoFE, under the Ministry of Foreign Employment (MoLE), also doesn't address cases of trafficking if the survivors have gone through a formal channel with work permission from the Government.
In such a scenario, there is a dire need of harmonizing Human Trafficking and Transportation Control Act, 2007, and Foreign Employment Act, 2007, for effective prosecution and protection of victims of trafficking.
Migration expert Dr Meena Poudel says that there is need of a comprehensive law that includes holistic aspects of trafficking. She even said that migration and trafficking mafia are working together but the organizations working for anti-trafficking and safe migration are not coordinating.
"The existing gap between the two laws will not help in rescue and repatriation of the survivors. The isolated laws should be combined together for a broader law," she explained.
Lack of data synchronization
between police, NHRC and MoWCSW
The record of yearly trafficking at the Ministry of Women Children and Social Welfare (MoWCSW) is based on the data maintained by Nepal Police and the latter's data is based on complaints filed on trafficking across the country. Foreign employment based trafficking cases are not registered by the police.
National Human Right Commission (NHRC) maintains the record of trafficking differently.
Record at the NHRC shows that 29,000 women and children were trafficked in the fiscal year 2013/14. But according to the data obtained from the Nepal Police, only 185 such cases were registered in the same year. There is a stark difference between data maintained by these two Government entities.
Joint Secretary at the MoWCSW, Radhika Aryal, accepted that there is a lack of coordination between police, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the ministry.
"The Government doesn't authorize records kept by Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and International Non Governmental Organizations (INGOs) while NHRC maintains data by coordinating with some such organizations working in the sector of trafficking," she said, stressing on the need of a comprehensive survey in the context of Nepal.
A data of International Labor Organization (ILO), 2001, suggests that 12,000 women and children are trafficked from Nepal every year.
*names changed
shresthas.shree@gmail.com
Related story
Business ideas matter
_20221219135433.jpg)
