Preventing Girls Trafficking
Extensive Approach Needed

By Indira Rana

THE Nepalese women population suffer from the consequences of early marriage, high fertility, high death rate, low life expectancy, illiteracy, economic discrimination and large family size. The crude death rate is higher for female than male. But in most countries the death rate is usually lower for female than the male and survival chances for woman are better than men.

Discrimination

Women represent over half of the human resource potential in Nepal, over half of the labour force as well as half of the potential voters.

The Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 1990 guarantees fundamental rights to all citizens without discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, caste, religion, race, sex etc. Constitution is the fundamental law of the land and all laws inconsistent with it, to the extent of such inconsistency, are void. But in practice, the laws inconsistent with the Constitution are in force and discriminations against women do prevail strongly.

Nepal has the second highest index of son preference as it has patriarchal social structure. Nepal’s commitment to International Human Rights Treaties is thus characterised by a widened gap between rhetoric and reality.

Due to discriminatory property laws, women are living under male subordination under father and brothers before marriage, husband, father and brother-in-laws after marriage and sons and grandsons after the death of husband. Hence domestic violence, rape, trafficking and prostitution are prevailing. Women are deprived of the basic human rights as guaranteed in the Constitution of the kingdom of Nepal. Violence against women is indeed a pervasive problem in both the developing and the developed countries. In South Asia, more children are being forced into the street primarily due to economic reasons. An interesting point is that many children have been accosted by other street children who had already been abused and now working as pimps for the paedophile giving rise to the belief that abused children grow up to be paedophile themselves. It is a fact that million of the girls and boys world-wide are being used in prostitution, pornography, trafficking and other forms of sexual exploitation.

In Nepal, trafficking in human being is illegal and punishable by law as well as by Constitution. Human trafficking (Control) Act 1986, prohibits selling and purchasing of human being for any purpose and taking persons to foreign countries with the intention of selling them. There is also 20 years imprisonment for the trafficker as well as purchaser.

The trafficking of women and girls for commercial and sexual exploitation is one of the major problems of Nepal. Trafficking of women and children has increased more in the last two decades. They are sold, traded, exchanged for sexual slavery, prostitution, bonded labour and servitude in the guise of marriage across the border from Nepal to different parts of India, from Bangladesh to India, Pakistan and Middle East etc.

Women are being transferred as commodities from one place to another. Lots of teenage girls are trafficked to India and other parts of the world are sent. They back with HIV/AIDS virus or other STD infections. Because we have open border and there is no restriction to go to India and come to Nepal. More than two hundred thousand teenage girls are trafficked from Nepal to Indian brothels. Every year not less than seven thousand women are trafficked.

They are raped and subjected to other forms of torture, to severe beating, battering, exposure to AIDS and arbitrary imprisonment. These girls who are from hilly villages and backward communities of Nepal are lured/enticed from their villages by local recruiters, close relatives as father/brother, even husband and neighbours promising for false jobs, better life or marriage, giving drugs and kidnapped. Brothels are tightly controlled and the girls are under constant surveillance. Owners use threats and severe beatings to keep inmates in line. In addition, the girls fear their capture by the brothel agent and arrest by the police because some police men are the brothel owner’s best clients. Both the Indian and Nepal governments are complicit in the abuses suffered by the victims. These abuses are not only violation of internationally recognised human rights but are specifically prohibited under the domestic laws of both countries.

Although Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, Human Rights Organisations and NGOs have reported extensively on the forced trafficking of Nepalese girls to India and other brothels, great majority of cases are never publicised and there have been few arrests and few prosecution.

In India, police and local officials patronize brothel and protect brothel owners and traffickers. Brothel owners pay protection money and bribe the police to prevent raid. In Nepal, border police are also bribed to allow traffickers to transport girls to India. Corruption and lack of political will among officials on both sides of the boarder means that the laws go unenforced. It is one of the poorly enforced Acts in Nepal. So flesh-trade it an unfortunate social evil with is roots in poverty. Trafficking in women and children has a Profitable industry. Hence it will not be stopped without lots of pressure on both governments.

Comprehensive

Though in 1996, SAARC Ministerial Meetings adopted the draft "SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for prostitution", it is yet to be ratified. Both the Convention and national laws must be enforced earnestly. We need comprehensive approach to prevent trafficking in human beings, specially poor and illiterate young girls of Nepal as well as South Asia.

(The author is a member of National Human Rights Commission)