13 December 2023, NIICE Commentary 8857
Akanshya Shah
Anjana (name changed), 16, lived with her family of five in Koilikharkha-05, Dhading district in Nepal. Given the weak economic condition of her household, all members of her family worked as labourers. By the year 2022, she was left with no option other than trusting her aunt to go to India in search of a job that led to most dreadful experience for her. Traveling for almost three days, Anjana and her aunt reached Pune and stayed in the aunt’s friend’s rental room. Two women there told her that her work was to “sleep with men.” She was taken to a building with makeup on her face. Two men arrived after a while, one took her to a room and the other went to another room where she saw her aunt; she was speechless! The man who was with her took out all her clothes and started sexually exploiting her harshly. He left after a while. While she was putting on her clothes, a few policemen barged in suddenly and interrogated everyone. They took four girls to the police station. The police took the two under-aged girls along with Anjana to the Child Welfare Center (CWC) and registered their case. She was reunited with her family after a few days.
Anjana’s story, which is listed as a case study with Maiti Nepal, a prominent NGO in Kathmandu working in rescue and rehabilitation of victims of child and women trafficking, is one the many tragic stories of Nepali women and girls who are often sold in Indian brothels for flesh trade. Many are also smuggled across the open border, a phenomenon at steady rise mainly since 2015 when Nepal was hit by a devastating earthquake followed by an unofficial blockade from the Indian side. In Nepal, the most widespread forms of human trafficking are for forced labor, domestic servitude, prostitution and sexual exploitation, and organ extraction. According to a report by Nepal’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), 35,000 people were victims of trafficking in 2017– 2018. By 2022, the NHRC said that some 12 to 15 thousand girls between the ages 6 to 16 are trafficked each year from Nepal to India. In the past one year alone, the Nepal Embassy in New Delhi dealt with 250 cases of trafficking and smuggling of NepaIi citizens.
Rampant poverty, unemployment, open border arrangement, enhanced connectivity, migration and post COVID-19 related stress are primarily forcing young women in to flesh trade in India. Besides the huge number of youths leaving Nepal for foreign employment for the Gulf, the Southeast-Asian countries and others, many Nepali boys and girls land in India in search of livelihood. And unlike the stereotype that only women are victims of trafficking, many Nepali boys, who can neither speak nor understand the local language properly at first, too have faced ordeal and trauma. On 19 October 2022, a Nepali boy was rescued from Delhi. The 14-year-old boy traveled to India with a village friend in search of work. He found a job at a restaurant in Delhi where he was made to work for paltry sum, often tortured and barely given enough food and clothing. Just a few days before the rescue, the family and relatives of the child became worried and started searching when they lost all contact with him. Authorities rescued him after a while with the help of NGO workers of Nepal and India using their networks.
Needless to say, trafficking and smuggling in person is a heinous crime as it is exploitative and perpetuates violence. But even after decades of facing this problem and trying to work out a cross-border mechanism to prevent human trafficking, the problem persists and is only being aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Traffickers are increasingly using social media and technologies to lure and deceive victims. The impact of climate change too, particularly in the Himalayan region, has increased the vulnerability to trafficking following disasters and displacement. Of course, there have been success stories too; but Nepal and India have failed to formalise a proper agreement to stop human smuggling and trafficking. The cross-border rescue operations have been purposeful with coordination with Nepal-India cross-border rescue teams to conduct frequent investigations and plan raids. Prominent NGOs have set up rescue shelters for speeding up and facilitating cross-border rescue operations in coordination with local CSOs and police in India. All the cross-border rescues however are planned and accomplished on priority basis only. Many victims are hardly capable of approaching the authorities or escaping their circumstances.
Unfortunately, Nepal does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, and has thus remained on the US’s Tier 2 countries on human trafficking in 2023. It is making significant efforts considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity. As per a report by the US embassy in Kathmandu, these include increasing investigations and identifying more trafficking victims. Nepal’s Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau (AHTB) under Nepal Police developed a training manual for investigating trafficking crimes. In addition, the government introduced a new policy to allow previously unregistered migrant workers to regain legal registration to work abroad. However, Nepal’s laws do not criminalise all forms of labor trafficking and sex trafficking, and the government has not finalised its long-pending draft amendments. “The government convicted fewer traffickers and concerns continued about official complicity in trafficking crimes. It has not finalised pending SOPs for victim identification and did not report if any identified victims were referred to services,” the report stated. The government continued to allow Nepali migrant workers to pay recruitment fees and related expenses with few measures to protect migrants from exploitation. In India, safety measure is limited to obtaining NOC (No Objection Certificate) from Nepal Embassy in New Delhi for persons travelling to third country for employment and is limited to few destinations.
The focus has to be in prosecution, protection and prevention aided by strong legal framework. The World Bank has urged Nepal to amend the Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act (HTTCA) to criminalise all forms of sex trafficking and labor trafficking, in line with the 2000 UN TIP Protocol. As per expert recommendations, Nepal needs to implement victim-witness protection provisions; increase investigations and prosecutions, including allegedly complicit officials, and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, which should involve significant prison terms; expand availability and capacity of victim care, including shelter and repatriation, for all victims, especially men and boys and workers exploited abroad; and strengthen the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE).
But since majority of the cases emanate from India, Nepal needs to urge Indian side to strengthen the mechanism to deal with this issue. India and Nepal need to create rights-based, enforceable agreement that protects Nepali workers from human trafficking and smuggling in India. Strong regulations and oversight are required at the border points and fraudulent agents must be held criminally accountable. In addition, access to social services is vital for rehabilitation. The SAARC and BBIN frameworks of the past for engagement in prevention of human trafficking in the region and sub-region respectively have not borne results as SAARC is virtually non-functional and BBIN is gripped with other matters like the Motor Vehicle Agreement. In 2015, when Nepal crumbled under the worst earthquake followed by border closure, India signed an MoU with Bangladesh on bilateral cooperation for prevention of human trafficking in women and children: rescue, recovery, repatriation and re-integration of victims of human trafficking. There should have been no reason to stop India and Nepal to work in this vital area to protect valuable lives. On 2 November 2023, a powerful earthquake hit Nepal’s western district of Jajarkot and Rukum West killing 153 people. These are most remote places in Nepal with majority of them moving to India for employment since a long time. Trends showcase that after every natural disaster, migration to India from Nepal has increased. The Jajarkot tremor is bound to give rise to the number of human trafficking across the border, hence, Nepal and India should take joint efforts to address this challenge.
Akanshya Shah is a Nepali journalist and researcher based in New Delhi.
