Trafficking and sex slavery
Trafficking into the brothels of India and domestic and sexual slavery in the Middle East is a historic trade, with between 5,000 and 12,000 girls aged from as young as 7 years old disappearing from Nepal every year. An estimated 200,000 girls from Nepal are working in brothels in India. The average lifespan of a girl working in prostitution in India is just 34 years.
The United Nations cites human trafficking as the third largest international criminal industry, with traffickers making an estimate US$32 billion annually.
Neither the governments of Nepal nor the recipient countries have acted with determination to stop this evil trade. Despite having anti-trafficking and corruption laws in place in both Nepal and India, the crime continues to flourish. There are, however, gaps in the law, but neither India nor Nepal have ratified the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2000 (UNTOC) with its comprehensive protocols that could close those gaps.
Corruption and injustice
The depressing truth is that the police, border agencies and judiciary are often involved, colluding with or taking bribes from the traffickers (as this case study demonstrates). Those traffickers who are arrested are usually not the main perpetrators; the powerful men at the top rarely, if ever, face justice. There is also a culture of blaming the victim along with the threat of her being ostracised from society, which contribute to the paucity of convictions.
Torture and slavery
Often drugged, tortured and gang-raped into submission, trafficked girls live in continual fear. Beatings, burning and other forms of physical, sexual and psychological abuse are regular forms of control. Rubbing chilli into their genitals is one common torture. Some women give birth to babies conceived in the brothels, and torture of these children is another form of control over their mothers.
We do not use the term sex slavery lightly. Most Nepali girls sold into brothels in India are instantly enslaved in debt bondage. They work many years for no money, paying off the imaginary debt placed on them by the brothel owners.
A bleak future
The small percentage of girls who are rescued or escape face a bleak future. Dissociated and often shunned by family and village communities, they find it difficult to reintegrate into society or find work. Many return sick or dying. Some are cast out when they are too ill to work, and find their own way home.
Many girls suffer long-term health problems. Beating them around the ears is a common punishment that leads some girls to return with hearing problems or burst eardrums. Many suffer from severe gynaecological problems caused by abusive and invasive sexual practices. More devastating are the cases of HIV/Aids and the increasing cases of immunity-resistant TB.
Trafficked girls lose their childhood, their innocence, their virginity, their families, their homes, their community, their chance of marriage, and in many cases their health, their future and their hope. We are doing our best to combat that legacy and assist these young women and girls to fully reintegrate into society.
Please donate to help trafficked girls.
Sexual and physical abuse
Sexual abuse of minors is an increasing issue in Nepal, possibly fired by the ease of access to exteme pornography, and in response to the volume of media coverage of high-profile rape cases in India. Many children are physically and/or sexually abused in the home environment. In cases of rape or assault by a male member of the family, the wider family is more likely to support the perpetrator than the child.
Figures also show that the majority of women in Nepal are physically abused by their partners. This includes forced sexual activities. Many victims of sexual abuse, rape and sexual attack, rather than finding comfort and support from their families, are deemed to be guilty and unclean and are cast out onto the streets.
Asha Nepal cares for increasing numbers of girls in our Children’s Reintegration Centre and Foster Homes who are victims of sexual abuse in the family.
Please donate to help victims of sexual and physical abuse.
Women and children's rights
Trafficking is not the only evil perpetrated in Nepal. Women are beaten or raped, children are abused or abandoned. There is no welfare system to help them. They end up on the streets, in institutions, or in forced labour, denied their human and childhood rights.
Gender and caste discrimination are rife in Nepal and though Nepal is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), successive governments have done little to act on human rights issues, and virtually nothing on women’s rights. Although Nepal is officially a caste-free society the reality is very different.
A woman’s place in life, her ability to obtain gainful employment and self-sufficiency is based on both caste and the men who dominate her – first her father, then her husband, and finally her son. A woman is considered an adjunct to and the property of the male head of the house.
A woman or girl child abandoned or thrown out of her family loses her status in society, and is usually deemed casteless or unclean. Her chance of obtaining self-sufficiency through employment without family/caste introductions is very difficult without outside help and support.
Rights of the Child
Although Nepal is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, it allows its tenets to be regularly flouted.
Though primary schooling is obligatory in Nepal, the reality is quite different. Due to poverty and the mindset that educating a girl is fruitless since she will ultimately become the property of her husband’s family, many families keep daughters at home to help with domestic chores and work in the fields, or put their children into employment. The literacy rate for girls is around 35% compared with male literacy of just over 60%.
Tens of thousands of children are put to work in domestic and other labour, often far away from their families. Living in often cramped and dirty conditions, they face physical, sexual and mental abuse from their employers and the employers’ family. It is rare for them to be given educational support, leaving them to face a life of menial labour. Children in such work, apart from suffering as mentioned above, face the risk of being trafficked or other forms of abusive labour.
Asha Nepal is committed to fighting against trafficking and other forms of exploitation and oppression of women and children in Nepal. We wish to see female status in society raised, through education and training, to give them more independence and a voice.
Further resources
Trafficked girls' stories
Asha Nepal/Shakti Samuha/Terre des Hommes's study on the lives of rescued and returned trafficking victims, Looking Towards Tomorrow, 2012
National Human Rights Commission of Nepal's report, Trafficking in Persons Especially on Women and Children in Nepal, 2011
For more information about the legal framework in Nepal and India and gaps in prevention, protection and prosecution, UNDOC's Responses to Human Trafficking in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, 2011
Asha Nepal's report on Trafficking of Women and Children from Nepal, A Sense of Direction, 2006