Human Trafficking in [Nepal Street Children in [Nepal] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Nepal] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Kingdom of Nepal [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Nepal is a source country for men,
women, and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual
exploitation and involuntary servitude. Children are trafficked within the
country and to India and the Middle East for commercial sexual exploitation
or forced marriage, as well as to India and within the country for
involuntary servitude as child soldiers, domestic servants, and circus
entertainment or factory workers. NGOs cite a growing internal child sex
tourism problem, with an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 girls trafficked from rural
areas to Kathmandu for commercial sexual exploitation. In addition, the
Nepalese Youth Foundation estimated that there are over 20,000 child
indentured domestic workers in Nepal. Bonded labor also remains a significant
problem in Nepal, affecting entire families forced into labor as land tillers
or cattle herders. Nepali women are trafficked to India and to countries in
the Middle East for commercial sexual exploitation. Men and women also
migrate willingly from Nepal to Malaysia, Israel, South Korea, the United
States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), Qatar, and other
Gulf states to work as domestic servants, construction workers, or other
low-skill laborers, but some subsequently face conditions of forced labor
such as withholding of passports, restrictions on movement, non-payment of
wages, threats, deprivation of food and sleep, and physical or sexual abuse.
A number of these workers are subjected to debt bondage produced in part by
fraud and high recruitment fees charged by unscrupulous agents in Nepal.
Despite a ban imposed by the Government of Nepal, some Nepalis are deceived
and trafficked into forced labor in Iraq through the U.A.E. and Kuwait. - U.S.
State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008 [full country report] |
|
CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** NEPAL:CHILD
LABOR Hard Reality An orphan from an early age, Madan
Karki (name changed),14, used to work at his uncle's small farm in Jeevanpur
of Dhading District, 50 kilometer west of capital. Madan's job was to take
the cattle for grazing the whole day. One day, a family friend approached him
with offer for work at his home in Kathmandu with a promise that he will be
admitted in a school. However, the man instead engaged
him at a carpet factory in Kathmandu. Working like a bonded labor, Madan was
forced to learn knotting wool rugs on heavy wooden looms. His workdays
started at 4 am in the morning till 11 at night. The earthen floor of the
factory was his bed. When the owner obtained a rush order, he and the other
boys would have to work throughout the entire night. Despite his hard work,
the owner always scolded and physically abused him. After working in harsh conditions
for about eight months in the factory, Madan –who was not paid - fled the
factory to work as a helper in a gas tempo. Now, he earns about Rs 1000
(approximately $15) a month. Madan's case is not a unique one as this is the
reality of many child workers in Nepal. Because Nepal's dependency on
child labor is so deeply entrenched, only half of the children are allowed to
complete the fifth grade of school. The ILO reports showed that. Children are
employed in eighteen different sectors like in brick kiln, coal mines, child
prostitution, mug house, leather processing industry, coal mine, stone
quarrying, match factory, house-hold helper, bonded labor, street children,
mine and carpet factory, drug trafficking, transport sector etc. About 1.4
million children are not provided the salary for their work and 1.27 million
children are working in worst forms of labor. Of Serious Concern http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=10333 Incidents of human trafficking are
on the rise in the country despite the presence of a number of organisations,
both in the private and government sectors, and the powerful media that makes
each incident of human trafficking public. The latest case of human
trafficking was revealed in Nepalgunj the other day when a suspected
trafficker was arrested while trying to traffic four boys and five girls
across the border. Thanks to Maiti Nepal, an NGO working for the well-being
of helpless girls, the police arrested the suspected trafficker. Though there
is no official record regarding the number of Nepalese girls trafficked to
Indian brothels, thousands of Nepalese girls are said to live lives of untold
misery in the Indian brothels. Why Nepal's freed labourers want to return to slavery "Between 15 and 20 percent of
the families declared free have returned to the same old practice of
slavery," says Dilli Chaudhary, president of an NGO called Backward
Society Education. Bonded labourers in Nepal are
called "kamaiyas" and belong to the country's backward Tharu
community. It is sheer poverty that forces the poor to borrow rice and food
from their employers - generally big landlords - and get trapped in slavery. Under the practice, once indebted,
the labourer and his heirs are 'bonded' to the landlord. They had to actually
reside on the landlord's property until the debt was completely repaid, which
seldom happened. ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S. Dept
of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - The government has reported a range of estimates for the number of
child trafficking victims. Some 5,000 to 12,000 girls may be trafficked
for commercial sexual exploitation annually, and as many as 200,000
trafficked Nepalese girls are estimated to reside in Indian brothels. Girls as young as 9 years old have been
trafficked. In 2001, a local NGO recorded 265 cases of girl trafficking
victims, of which 34 percent were below 16 years of age. While trafficking of children often leads
to their sexual exploitation, there is also demand for trafficked boys and
girls to work in the informal labor sector Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 CHILDREN - Maoists abducted teenagers and
some younger children to serve as porters, runners, cooks, and armed cadre.
Most children abducted from their schools for political education sessions
were returned home within a few days, but some remained with the Maoists, either
voluntarily or under compulsion. The Maoists denied recruiting children. In
September the RNA estimated that 30 percent of Maoist guerillas were under
the age of 18, and some were as young as 10. TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
– Local NGOs combating
trafficking estimated that 25 thousand to 200 thousand women and girls were
lured or abducted annually into Hundreds of women and girls
returned voluntarily or were rescued and repatriated to the country annually
after having worked as commercial sex workers in Traffickers were usually from the
country or Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2005 [53] Given the significant number
of Nepalese children who are adopted by foreigners and in the context of the
current armed conflict in the State party, the Committee is concerned at the
lack of a clear policy and appropriate legislation on inter-country adoption,
which result in various practices, such as trafficking and smuggling of
babies. The Committee is particularly concerned about the absence of due
judicial process, including technical assessment of capacity of the parents
or guardians, in cases involving termination of the parental responsibility.
The Committee also expresses concern regarding the practice of the so-called
informal adoption, which may entail exploitation of children as domestic
servants. [95] The Committee takes note of
the various efforts undertaken by the State party to combat child trafficking
and welcomes the information that police officers are Govt to set
up 3 rehabs for trafficking victims "We have cases in which
children are trafficked to India during harvest season and they are forced to
live like slaves. Human trafficking also takes place for organ
transplant," Bhandari said adding, "Including Nuwakot, Kavre and
Sindhupalchowk, the government has identified 25 districts as trafficking
prone." Human
trafficking helps spread HIV/AIDS in Asia: UN "Trafficking ... contributes
to the spread of HIV by significantly increasing the vulnerability of
trafficked persons to infection," said Caitlin Wiesen-Antin, HIV/AIDS
regional coordinator, Asia and Pacific, for the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP). "Both human
trafficking and HIV greatly threaten human development and security." Major human trafficking routes run
between Nepal and India and
between Thailand and neighbors like Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. Many of the
victims are young teenage girls who end up in prostitution. "The link between human trafficking
and HIV/AIDS has only been identified fairly recently," Wiesen-Antin
told the International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific. NEPAL:CHILD
LABOR Hard Reality An orphan from an early age, Madan
Karki (name changed),14, used to work at his uncle's small farm in Jeevanpur
of Dhading District, 50 kilometer west of capital. Madan's job was to take
the cattle for grazing the whole day. One day, a family friend approached him
with offer for work at his home in Kathmandu with a promise that he will be
admitted in a school. However, the man instead engaged
him at a carpet factory in Kathmandu. Working like a bonded labor, Madan was
forced to learn knotting wool rugs on heavy wooden looms. His workdays
started at 4 am in the morning till 11 at night. The earthen floor of the
factory was his bed. When the owner obtained a rush order, he and the other
boys would have to work throughout the entire night. Despite his hard work,
the owner always scolded and physically abused him. After working in harsh conditions
for about eight months in the factory, Madan –who was not paid - fled the
factory to work as a helper in a gas tempo. Now, he earns about Rs 1000
(approximately $15) a month. Madan's case is not a unique one as this is the
reality of many child workers in Nepal. Because Nepal's dependency on
child labor is so deeply entrenched, only half of the children are allowed to
complete the fifth grade of school. The ILO reports showed that. Children are
employed in eighteen different sectors like in brick kiln, coal mines, child
prostitution, mug house, leather processing industry, coal mine, stone
quarrying, match factory, house-hold helper, bonded labor, street children,
mine and carpet factory, drug trafficking, transport sector etc. About 1.4
million children are not provided the salary for their work and 1.27 million
children are working in worst forms of labor. NGOs Work
To Eradicate Human Trafficking, Help Victims U.S.-funded nongovernmental
organizations around the world are working to prevent human trafficking,
provide resources to victims and arrest and prosecute child-sex offenders.
From Africa to Europe to Asia, initiatives are raising worldwide awareness of
the illegal practice of human trafficking. PREVENTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING - Shakti Samuaha in Nepal is the
first NGO in the world formed by trafficking survivors, and more than 120
survivors attended its conference in March to commemorate International
Women’s Day. Conference participants focused on preventing human trafficking
of vulnerable populations, particularly adolescent girls, and providing
rehabilitative services for other trafficking survivors. Of Serious Concern http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=10333 Incidents of human trafficking are
on the rise in the country despite the presence of a number of organisations,
both in the private and government sectors, and the powerful media that makes
each incident of human trafficking public. The latest case of human
trafficking was revealed in Nepalgunj the other day when a suspected
trafficker was arrested while trying to traffic four boys and five girls
across the border. Thanks to Maiti Nepal, an NGO working for the well-being
of helpless girls, the police arrested the suspected trafficker. Though there
is no official record regarding the number of Nepalese girls trafficked to
Indian brothels, thousands of Nepalese girls are said to live lives of untold
misery in the Indian brothels. Action Plan Against Trafficking http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=9149 Although the government, law
enforcement agencies and social orgnisations have been active in checking
human trafficking, the unscrupulous brokers continue to do the business
taking advantage of legal and other loopholes. It is also believed that there
is a strong nexus between the brothel owners, brokers, politicians and
criminal gangs who aid in human trafficking. As a result, checking and
eliminating human trafficking have become a challenge. Update mechanism to check human trafficking http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=9055 Timely changes need to be made in
the existing national plan of action to combat human trafficking and trade of
human kind, participants at a national policy consultation workshop said
Sunday. Speaking at the workshop jointly
organised by the Ministry for Women, Children and Social Welfare, Ministry
for Local Development, WOREC Nepal and Alliance working against the
trafficking of women and children, participants underscored the need to sign
a extradition treaty to rescue the victims of trafficking from the next
country. Peace
Won't Stop Human Trafficking Men also are trafficked -- lured
to a centre by the prospect of a certain job and then kept in exploitative
work situations. The report estimates that 60
percent of trafficking from and within this South Asian nation is for sexual
purposes and 40 percent is to supply workers for labour, such as toiling in
garment factories. "Trafficking for various
purposes other than sexual ones still needs to be addressed
strategically...the lack of a definition has created confusion in formulating
acts, plans and policies" Human
trafficking from Nepal on rise Trafficking of Nepalese women and
children into India, especially from the western districts, has increased
significantly in recent days due to lax security at border checkpoints. A large number of women and children
are being trafficked into India from checkpoints west of Butwal,
representatives of several Indian and Nepalese non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) and security officials stated during an interaction on 'controlling
cross-border human trafficking'. Prostitution
of Nepalese girls rampant in Indian brothel ''Young girls are trafficked from Women
Trafficking And Conflict "I got acquainted with a boy
who was 30 who said he loved me and promised to marry me. He convinced me to
go to Around
30 Percent Child Recruits In Maoist Army Around 30 percent of the "people's army" of 17,000
Nepal Women Forced Into Prostitution In India According to the study, the investigators talked
personally to the Nepali women in the brothels of The
Saving of Innocents - The Satya Interview with Ruchira Gupta An uncle or a family friend pays
the parent something like $30. There is the middleman in a packed city, the
border guard who takes a payoff, and the agent who takes the girls across the
border to the people who then transport them to Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 5 Civil Liberties: 4 Status: Partly Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide U.S. Library of Congress
- Country Study Nepal's
children devastated by raging armed conflict Watchlist calls for immediate
action to stop the spectrum of violations against children in the context of
armed conflict, including killing, maiming, torture, rape and other forms of
sexual violence, attacks on schools, abduction, trafficking, forced labor,
underage recruitment into fighting forces, forced displacement, death and
injury from landmines, and others. VIOLENCE AND DISCRIMINATION BASED
ON GENDER AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION - Gender-based violence—including domestic violence,
sexual assault, and trafficking into forced labor and forced
prostitution—remains pervasive and deeply entrenched in Nepal. Fighting
to stop trade in sex slaves Girls as young as 13 are taken
from villages and slum areas by traffickers - men, and sometimes women - who lure
them away with the promise of well-paid jobs in the country’s capital,
Kathmandu, or in the big cities of India and the Gulf states. But what actually awaits the girls
is a life of forced prostitution in these cities’ brothels. The girls don’t
know how to escape - they are mainly uneducated and extremely poor and too
ashamed to tell their families what they are doing. Even if they manage to escape or get
rescued from the brothels, their families and communities often refuse to
take them back because of the social stigma the girls now carry. Why Nepal's freed labourers want to return to slavery "Between 15 and 20 percent of
the families declared free have returned to the same old practice of
slavery," says Dilli Chaudhary, president of an NGO called Backward
Society Education. Bonded labourers in Nepal are
called "kamaiyas" and belong to the country's backward Tharu
community. It is sheer poverty that forces the poor to borrow rice and food
from their employers - generally big landlords - and get trapped in slavery. Under the practice, once indebted,
the labourer and his heirs are 'bonded' to the landlord. They had to actually
reside on the landlord's property until the debt was completely repaid, which
seldom happened. Nepal
rebels plan to train 50,000 Child Soldiers This week, Nepal's Maoist rebels
announced plans to raise a militia of 50,000 children by April, amid reports
of mass abduction, even sexual abuse of kids, who they allegedly use as
cannon fodder. In the past six months, CWIN
recorded 2,866 cases of child labour exploitation, child deaths and murder,
missing children, violence, sexual abuse, trafficking, forced prostitution,
children affected by armed conflict and children in conflict with the law. STRENGTHENING WOMEN'S RIGHTS - Life is hard for most women in
Nepal. Many have to survive on less than $1 a day. Domestic violence and the
trafficking of women are widespread. Between 5,000 and 12,000 Nepalese
girls are trafficked by organised gangs to work in brothels each year. Only 27 per cent of women are literate
compared with 67 per cent of men. A Nepalese woman cannot apply for
a job, passport, or bank account without permission from her father or
husband. And with low female literacy rates, it is difficult for Nepali women
to use public courts to challenge abuse and discrimination. The alleged trafficking of three girls from Nepal http://www.ecpat.net/eng/Ecpat_inter/IRC/newsdesk_articles.asp?SCID=1562 The survey found that apart from
Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, Nepalese women and children are also trafficked to
Maharashtra, West Bengal and Bihar. Most of the victims, belonging to poor
families, are brought here on the pretext of providing them better jobs. It
is being suspected that the three girls, who have gone missing from Chitwan,
were brought here on the pretext of getting them roles in Indian movies.
Lured by such offers, the victims accompany trafficking agents, who sell them
off to brothel owners. From those
rescued in the recent past, the authorities concerned have come to know that
several Nepalese girls were also sold off to brothels located on G.B. Road in
Central Delhi. Combating
Trafficking In Nepal Fourteen-year-old Urmila Tamang
(name changed to protect her privacy) is from a small village in Chitwan,
Nepal. A woman from a neighboring district approached Urmila’s unsuspecting
parents in 2002 with promises of a lucrative circus job for their daughter in
Varanasi, a city in northern India. Ignorant about human trafficking, they
sent Urmila without enquiring further about the nature of the job. There,
Urmila endured a year of labor exploitation and sexual harassment as an
acrobat and tight rope walker. Nepal's
victims of human trafficking shy away from justice Even though Nepal has a strict
legal system that can punish traffickers with life imprisonment, a
combination of factors keeps the victims away from the doors of justice -
social stigma, lengthy judicial process, re-victimisation and lack of easy
access to the law. Take the example of Tirtha Rai
(name changed), a girl in her mid-20s from the district of Sindhupalchowk,
east of Kathmandu valley. She had been sold to a brothel in India by her
aunt. Similarly, Bhawana Sharma (name
changed), a teen-aged girl from Nuwakot, a district west of Kathmandu, was
lured by a promise of marriage and taken to Pune in India, where she was sold
to a brothel. Labour migration and human trafficking in Nepal Nepal has faced the problem of
human trafficking, particularly of girls and women, for many years.
Illiteracy, superstition, cultural stereotypes, gender disparity and economic
deprivation, among other factors, place women in powerless, non-negotiable
situations which have contributed to the emergence and breeding of this
problem not only in Nepal but in the entire region. US blames turmoil for prostitution in Nepal The report holds the eight-year-old
Maoist insurgency responsible in many ways. The rebels themselves are
perpetrators, it says, abducting and forcibly conscripting children. Since September 2003, the insurgents have
abducted about 950 children, the report says. In rural areas, insurgency
activities have led to the withdrawal of police, resulting in a remarkable
decrease in trafficking related investigations. The government, grappling with the rebels
on one hand and political parties on the other, has been unable to combat trafficking.
Since the dissolution of
parliament in 2002, no elections have been held. As a result, legislation
that would have cracked down on trafficking-related offences remains in
limbo, the report says. Nepal
police free child labourers Police in Nepal have rescued 14
children, forced to work as bonded labourers at a weaving factory in the
capital, Kathmandu. Police said the children were working as wool spinners
within the dark, cold rooms of the secretly run factory. They said the children, aged between 14 and
17, were treated inhumanely and were not paid. Combating
Trafficking of Women and Children in South Asia [PDF] [page 110]
With regard to trafficking for sexual exploitation, the Government of
Nepal has become increasingly concerned, particularly about the trafficking
of adolescent and young girls to India, where many of them end up in
brothels. In 1998 the Government therefore began work on a National Policy,
Action Plan and Institutional Mechanism to Combat Against Trafficking in
Women and Children for Commercial Sexual Exploitation. The National Action
Plan is broad-based, and includes proposed activities in the areas of (i)
policy, research, and institutional development; (ii) legislation and
enforcement; (iii) awareness raising, advocacy, networking, and social
mobilization; (iv) health and education; (v) income and employment generation;
and (vi) rescue and reintegration. The
UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women commended the Action Plan as
both comprehensive and well thought out, although she noted that more
attention could be paid to the prosecution and punishment of traffickers. The
Enslavement of Dalit and Indigenous Communities [PDF] SUMMARY: - This paper describes the gross
and continuing violation of the rights of millions of people in India,
Pakistan and Nepal1, who are trapped in debt bondage and forced to work to
repay loans. Their designation as persons belonging outside the Hindu caste
system is a major determining factor of their enslavement. Evidence from all
three countries shows that the vast majority (80%-98%) of bonded labourers
are from communities designated as “untouchable”, to whom certain occupations
are assigned, or from indigenous communities. In the same way that caste
status is inherited, so debts are passed on to the succeeding generations. She confides that, in reality, she
was sold by her friends, who tricked her into going to Mumbai. The madam paid
35,000 rupees ($750) for her, a sum that took her four and a half years to
repay. In India, prostitution is not illegal, so long as it is voluntary and
the girls are not underage. None the less, the police have been cracking down
on Nepalese underage girls. So the girls lie about everything – their age,
their nationality, their names. By the time Kanchi had repaid her
debt she had forgotten the traffickers. Falkland Road had become her life and
her home. She began to make money. She charges, she says, 35 to 50 rupees
(75c-$1.10) a customer, out of which she pays rent for the bed and the
regular requisite bribes to the police. Not long ago, she went back to
Kathmandu in Nepal. She told her sisters she was working in a hotel, washing
dishes. “I’m the only one in my family who’s gone to the bad,” she says. “I
don’t like this life, but what can I do? If I don’t do this, I die. What else
is there to do?” Because she is beautiful, many men have offered to marry
her. But she is too canny for that. “So many men try to seduce me. But I know
they’ll just sell me back to the brothel.” RAPE
FOR PROFIT - Trafficking of Nepali Girls and Women to India's Brothels INTRODUCTION - Trafficking victims in India
are subjected to conditions tantamount to slavery and to serious physical
abuse. Held in debt bondage for years at a time, they are raped and subjected
to other forms of torture, to severe beatings, exposure to AIDS, and
arbitrary imprisonment. Many are young women from remote hill villages and
poor border communities of Nepal who are lured from their villages by local
recruiters, relatives or neighbors promising jobs or marriage, and sold for
amounts as small as Nepali Rs.200 [$4.00] to brokers who deliver them to
brothel owners in India for anywhere from Rs.15,000 to Rs.40,000
[$500-$1,333]. This purchase price, plus interest (reported to be ten percent
of the total), becomes the "debt" that the women must work to pay
off -- a process that can stretch on indefinitely. Only the brothel owner
knows the terms of the debt, and most women have no idea how much they owe or
the terms for repayment. Brothels are tightly controlled, and the girls are
under constant surveillance. Escape is virtually impossible. Owners use
threats and severe beatings to keep inmates in line. In addition, women fear
capture by other brothel agents and arrest by the police if they are found on
the streets; some of these police are the brothel owner's best clients. Many
of the girls and women are brought to India as virgins; many return to Nepal
with the HIV virus. Tulasa
and the Horrors of Child Prostitution - Sold And Resold Body And Soul Tulasa was abducted from Thankut
village in Bagmati district near Kathmandu and then smuggled to Bombay via
Birganj 11 years ago. She was sold thrice, to different brothel keepers in
the city, for prices ranging from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 7,500. Brutalized and
ravaged, it was only when her tiny body simultaneously playing host to three
venereal diseases and three types of tuberculosis collapsed, that her ordeal
came to an end. Doctors salvaged whatever remained of her and contacted her
father who took her back to Nepal. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use |
Human Trafficking in [Nepal Street Children in [Nepal] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Nepal] [other countries]