Nepal and Bangladesh are the main source countries in south Asia for
trafficked children. (Masako Iijima, "S. Asia urged to unite against child
prostitution," Reuters, 19 June 1998)
The trafficking of girls from Nepal into India for the purpose of prostitution is
probably the busiest 'slave traffic' of its kind anywhere in the world. (Tim McGirk,
"Nepal's Lost Daughters, 'India's soiled goods," Nepal/India: News, 27
January 1997)
In Nepal, trafficking has become a highly profitable business, with high profile
political connections. Nepali, Bangaldeshi and Pakistani women are trafficked to India,
and through India they are trafficked to Eastern Europe and Saudi Arabia. (Interview with
Meena Oudel, Programme Coordinator of Oxfam Nepal, 18 March 1998)
More than 9,000 girls are trafficked each year from Nepal and Bangladesh into bondage
in India and Pakistan, often with the acquiescence or cooperation of state officials.
(http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news/press/releases/22_april_1998-0.shtml, 22 April 1998)
Every year around 10,000 Nepalese girls, most between the age of nine and 16, are sold
to brothels in India. (Tim McGirk, "Nepal's Lost Daughters, India's soiled
goods," Nepal/India:News, 27 January 1997)
7,000 Nepalese women and girls are trafficked for prostitution to the Asia Pacific
area. (Statement of the CATW - Asia Pacific and Philippine Women's Groups, 4th
International Congress on AIDS in the Asia Pacific, 29 October 1997)
5,000 Nepalese women are trafficked into India yearly. There are now 100,000 Nepalese
women in India in prostitution. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and
Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)
More than 200,000 Nepalese girls are involved in the Indian sex trade. (Tim McGirk
"Nepal's Lost Daughters, 'India's soiled goods," Nepal/India News,
27 January 1997)
Nepalese women who are trafficked and prostituted in debt bondage in India's sex
industry are forced to work longer hours and have more clients than local women. (CATW -
Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)
Hong Kong is the second biggest market for trafficked Nepalese women. (CATW - Asia
Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)
Methods and Techniques of
Traffickers
In Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka child marriage is accepted, and considered
the best method to procure girls for prostitution. (Indrani Sinha, SANLAAP India,
"Paper on Globalization & Human Rights")
Parents sell their daughters and husbands get rid of their young unwanted wives for
US$200 to $600. Depending on her beauty, a girl can fetch anywhere from less than a water
buffalo, to slightly more than a video recorder. Organizers in rural areas, brokers and
even family members sell girls. Husbands sometimes sell their wives to brothels. (Tim
McGirk, "Nepal's Lost Daughters, 'India's soiled goods,"Nepal/India News,
27 January 1997)
In Nepal, there is a system, called "deukis," where by rich childless
families buy girls from poor rural families and offer them to the temples as though they
were their own. These girls are forced into prostitution. In 1992, 17,000 girls were given
as deukis. (Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Special Report on Violence Against Women, Gustavo
Capdevila, IPS, 2 April 1997)
Every year between 5,000 and 7,000 Nepalese girls
are trafficked into the red light districts in Indian cities. Many of the girls are barely
9 or 10 years old. 200,000 to over 250,000 Nepalese women and girls are already in Indian
brothels. The girls are sold by poor parents, tricked into fraudulent marriages, or
promised employment in towns only to find themselves in Hindustan's brothels. They're
locked up for days, starved, beaten, and burned with cigarettes until they learn how to
service up to 25 clients a day. Some girls go through 'training' before being initiated
into prostitution, which can include constant exposure to pornographic films, tutorials in
how to 'please' customers, repeated rapes. (Soma Wadhwa, "For sale childhood," Outlook,
1998)
Trafficking in
women and girls is easy along the 1,740 mile-long open border between India and Nepal.
Trafficking in Nepalese women and girls is less risky than smuggling narcotics and
electronic equipment into India. Traffickers ferry large groups of girls at a time without
the hassle of paperwork or threats of police checks. The procurer-pimp-police network
makes the process even smoother. Bought for as little as Rs (Nepalese) 1,000, girls have
been known to fetch up to Rs 30,000 in later transactions. Police are paid by brothel
owners to ignore the situation. Girls may not leave the brothels until they have repaid
their debt, at which time they are sick, with HIV and/or tuberculosis, and often have
children of their own. (Soma Wadhwa, "For sale childhood," Outlook,
1998)
The areas used by
traffickers to procure women and girls are the isolated districts of Sindhupalchow,
Makwanpur, Dhading and Khavre, Nepal where the population is largely illiterate. (Soma
Wadhwa, "For sale childhood," Outlook, 1998)
Health and Well-Being
Nepalese girls, trafficked and sold into prostitution in India, are abandoned when they
become infected with HIV. (Robert Hardman, "Prince brings hope to Nepal’s
rescued sex slaves," London Telegraph, 9 February 1998)
Of the 218 Nepalese girls rescued in February 1996 from a Bombay police raid, 60-70% of
them were HIV positive. (Tim McGirk "Nepal's Lost Daughters, 'India's soiled
goods,"Nepal/India News, 27 January 1997)
NGO Action
The exploitation
of Nepalese women and girls may never end. "[F]or some there is too much easy money
in it, for others there's nothing to be gained by lobbying for its abolition. But surely,
for now, it can be monitored. Its magnitude can be lessened," says Durga Ghimire,
chairperson of a 98-NGO-strong pressure group National Network Groups Against Trafficking.
She feels that the alarmingly low rates of female literacy, coupled with the traditionally
low status of the girl-child in Nepal have to be addressed to tackle the problem. Gauri
Pradhan of Child Workers in Nepal Concerned Centre (CWIN) emphasizes the need for
collaboration by the two governments on this issue. (Soma Wadhwa, "For sale
childhood," Outlook, 1998)
There are several shelters run by various Katmandu-based
NGOs working against trafficking and towards rehabilitation of girls who manage to escape
or are rescued from Indian brothels. This is not easy work. Relatives of the rescued girls
generally don't want them back and Nepal's government is worried about the spread of HIV,
as many of the trafficked girls have contracted HIV while enslaved in India. (Soma Wadhwa,
"For sale childhood," Outlook, 1998)
"The Selling of
Innocents" is an Emmy-award winning documentary that tells the stories of trafficked
Nepalese children and the filmmaker, Ruchira Gupta, says elimination of sexual
exploitation is perhaps the only way to end this human rights violation. "It's a long
haul, we've to change and challenge society. The trafficking and the trade are getting
institutionalised, it's a modern form of sexual slavery," she warns. (Soma Wadhwa,
"For sale childhood," Outlook, 1998)
Official Response and Action
139 prostituted
Nepalese girls were rescued through a police raid in Kamatipura, India and were then
repatriated to Katmandu. (Soma Wadhwa, "For sale childhood," Outlook,
1998)