Police fail to nab human traffickers

JHAPA, May 26: Police have failed to nab human traffickers despite rescuing dozens of women at the Kakarbhitta border every month. A joint team of the police and Maiti Nepal at the eastern border has rescued 114 women and 11 men being taken to India for sale in the last 10 months. [break]



"It is very hard to nab traffickers. They don´t come into our hands easily and even if they do most of them escape for lack of proper proof against them," concedes Inspector Lal Govinda Shrestha, chief of the Kakarbhitta checkpoint. "The victims complain at first but don´t come into contact again after the arrest of the traffickers, which makes it difficult to gather proof against the latter," Shrestha adds.



Kakarbhitta police hold a local couple in custody since the last seven days against a complaint filed by Sarita BK of Sindhuli. But BK, who had filed a complaint that the couple sold her at a Siliguri hotel for Indian Rs 20,000, has not come into contact since. "How can we initiate action under such conditions?" Shrestha asks.



The regional office of Maiti Nepal says that traffickers escape the clutches of the law due to the ignorance of victims who fall easy prey to the lure of work prospects and money.



"The victims don´t know that they are going to be sold and introduce the traffickers as their husbands, brothers or some other relatives, making it difficult to arrest them," says program officer at Maiti Nepal Govinda Ghimire. "By the time they learn the truth, it is already too late," Ghimire adds.






Maiti Nepal has rescued 125 women from Indian brothels and prevented intercepted 1,556 others at Kakarbhitta but not a single trafficker has been nabbed yet.



More than 100 women have been rescued this year from Pashupatinagar checkpoint but the police have not arrested a single trafficker there either. The police say the traffickers either cross the border before the women or follow later, making it virtually impossible to nab them.



Just four persons are facing human-trafficking charges in Jhapa and four are being detained for investigations in Illam.



Maiti Nepal claims that more than two dozen human traffickers from Sindhuli, Udayapur, Sindhupalchowk, Nuwakot, Dhading and Makawanpur are active in the eastern region in coordination with agents deployed at different Nepali towns and in India. It say that most of the victims are also from those districts.