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Asha Nepal was founded in 1998, under the original name of Maiti Children’s Trust. The previous year, Peter Bashford had read and been inspired by a powerful and emotive article about girls trafficked from Nepal into the brothels of India, written by journalist and photographer Sue Carpenter. That autumn, he travelled to Nepal to find out the facts for himself. He returned determined to do something about the situation and help the thousands of young women and girls affected by the evil trade.

He contacted Sue Carpenter and, along with another trustee, they established a British-registered charity to assist a counter-trafficking NGO in Nepal. After several years supporting the Nepali NGO, it became clear that our two organisations had different understandings of human rights and the care and needs of the victims we aimed to help. In 2005 we changed our name to Asha Nepal, to allow us to spread our net wider, supporting numerous projects through various organisations in Nepal.

We have gone on to network with many NGOs and INGOs, to fund specific projects for women and girls rescued from brothels and for victims of other human rights abuses, and to support organisations that carry out rescue and repatriation work in Delhi and Mumbai (Bombay). The trafficking issue is complex and has links to many other forms of rights abuse, leading us to widen our remit to include women and children abused in other ways, and to support those who have returned with HIV.

Key to our work is creating reliable Nepali partnerships. In 2005 we met with an emergent group of trafficked women who, unhappy with the lack of support, levels of institutional abuse and discrimination within some Nepali organisations, had decided they would set up their own organisation to try and do things better. Our relationship with our main partner Shakti Samuha was born. Soon after, a sister organization, Shakti Milan Shamaj, was created to care for HIV positive women; they became our second partner. Working with both groups has created challenges and rewards in equal measure. The strength of our relationship with both organisations comes from the fact that we have shared these challenges and rewards together.

It has always been one of our aims to further the work of Asha Nepal by giving ownership of the fight against trafficking to Nepali people. In 2009 the local staff team, volunteers and supporters registered Asha Nepal as an NGO in Nepal with its own board of Trustees.

Asha Nepal is a UK-registered charity, Charity Commission no 1082581. In Nepal, Asha Nepal is registered with the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare.