Trafficking is Real.

Women and Girl's Trafficking in Nepal is a prevalent practice throughout the country. Girls are literally plucked from small villages as their parents are promised that they will have a prosperous future "working abroad." Some parents believe that their daughters will find domestic work in India, but some know they will enter the sex trade in major Indian cities. The girls, too, are scammed by "traders" into thinking they will find employment and wealth in the big city. Most are uneducated and desperate and they are taken advantage of by people who have no conscious or humanity.

It is a sad reality for poor families in disadvantaged corners of Nepal. Girls are often seen as a burden for parents- some would rather have them "disappear" than feed and take care of them. So they send them to their fate in back alleys and brothels in India. Here they are abused, raped and treated like animals. They are alone, scared and literally trapped.

Many anti-trafficking organizations based in Kathmandu are working to recover missing girls and rehab those that have been exposed to the sex trade in the past. They perform undercover-type activities to catch sex traders and infiltrate trafficking networks. In some operations, the organizations set out to stop tourist buses and micro vans that come from Nepal and cross the border into India.

One of the producers we work with in a border city to the West relayed to me this story a few days ago. He was on a bus from Kathmandu to the border and about 5KM before the border check area, the bus was stopped by a group of women literally in the middle of the road. They boarded the bus and showed papers that proved they were with Maiti Nepal, one of the most well-known anti-trafficking organizations. They demanded to see ID papers from all those on the bus. They said they were checking for girls who were being trafficked into India. As they checked everyone, they discovered that a man was on board with two young girls, who were neither his daughters nor family members. The girls were questioned outside the bus and it came out that they had been taken from their village a few days earlier by this man who promised to find them work in Calcutta. The man was taken into custody and the girls were escorted back to Maiti Nepal headquarters in Kathmandu for observation and counseling.

When I was hearing this story it gave me chills. This NGO has taken the initiative to attack a problem that the government has been unable to address. And in doing so, they have highlighted the immense need for continued efforts by the government to end this appalling human rights violation. The laws against traffickers are too lenient and the money that changes hands in the web of the sex trade industry in Nepal is the dirtiest money around. People are paid off, families are lied to by both authorities and traffickers, and at the end of the day, girls are still vanishing.

Initiatives taken by Maiti and other NGOs are hopeful. The rehabilitation programme at Mathi is famous. Women staying in the Center even produce handicrafts as a way to earn a living wage. Global Daughter is in touch with the Center and will more than likely be selling a few of their products on-line soon. Supporting this group means saying "no" to sexual exploitation and saying "yes" to empowerment. It is not enough to rehabilitate their spirit, we must offer them a new way of life. By becoming a working artisan, they are given the opportunity to retain stable employment and appropriately integrate back into society. The Center encourages women to be financially secure by teaching them a variety of income generating skills.

We look forward to being associated with this group and joining the fight against domestic violence, trafficking for flesh trade, child prostitution, child labor and forms of exploitation and torture.

For more information about Maiti Nepal, please visit their website at: http://www.maitinepal.org/pages.php?option=About%20Us