Missing Links

IT IS quite unfortunate that the secretary-level talks between Nepal and India that ended on Thursday failed to reach an agreement on extending Indian railways to the dry port at Birgunj even after four days of discussion. The talks were also marked by a failure to reach an agreement on operating direct transport services between Nepal and Indian cities. Having said that, there is nonetheless some optimism that an agreement could be reached in some future talks. A Ministry of Labour and Transport Management source told a reporter of this daily that there has been an understanding on several issues related to the operation of the railways, but certain issues still needed to be finalised and they would be dealt through the diplomatic channel. The talks that concluded on Thursday was the third round of discussions on extending Indian railways to the dry port, and on the selection of the Terminal Management Company to operate the dry port. Much investment has gone into building the dry port in Birgunj where the facilities remain in disuse ever since it was constructed.

The hoped-for benefits from the dry port for Nepalese businessmen and industrialists have not come, because of the stalemate in the Nepal-Indian talks on the mechanism to use the facilities. In the talks with the Indian side, Nepal has been rightly demanding that it should have the right to customs clearance of third country imports at the dry port itself whereas India wants the customs clearance and container inspection to take place at Raxaul, the border point on the Indian side. Nepal's stand is legitimate as the raison d'etre of having the dry port is to facilitate exactly such movement of goods with least hassles. On the issue of direct transport, though a press statement from the Ministry spoke of agreement on several provisions of the related draft agreement, the fact that further discussions were needed regarding the routes, points of entry, destinations and facilities to be provided to the vehicles made in third countries and so on, point to the difficulty in the talks on these issues in the future. It is imperative that, Nepal and India, having such deep ties in so many areas of mutual cooperation, thrash out their differences on this vital area of the transport sector. Future diplomatic or bureaucracy-level talks must start from a premise that a mutually beneficial agreement on the railway link as well as the direct transport link would strengthen the economic cooperation between the two countries. These essential transportation connections should not continue to remain the missing links.

Checking Girl Trafficking

HUMAN trafficking for commercial purpose is emerging as one of the serious social problems in Nepal. Reports say that thousands of Nepalese women are trafficked every year and compelled to engaged in commercial sex trade in different cities of India. Almost half of these trafficked Nepalese women are young girls below 18 years of age. Social organisations working in the field of human rights and women's rights have complained that these girls are exploited a lot and they live very miserable life in the brothels. Majority of the women, who return home from various brothels of India, have been found to be infected with various sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS. This phenomenon has been considered as one of the major sources of spread of HIV/AIDS in Nepal. India has already been portrayed as a country with largest number of HIV/AID infected people in the world. Nepal and India have open border and free movement of people. If this trend continues unabated, the menace of HIV/AIDS is likely to take epidemic proportion in Nepal too. Human trafficking is a gross violation of human rights and is a social crime. The cross border trafficking of women is the case that has to be looked into by both Nepal and India. Both these South Asian neighbours have expressed commitment at national as well as international level to eliminate human trafficking and all forms of exploitations and discriminations against women. Some initiatives have accordingly been taken to check this killer disease. Given the nature of the relations between Nepal and India and open border, one country alone may not be able to succeed in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Thus, coordinated efforts of both Nepal and India are highly necessary to check the spread of this killer disease. The first and foremost step towards this would be a joint action against cross-border trafficking in women. Against this background, national rapporteur on women trafficking Dr Renu Rajbhandari unveiled a national plan against girl trafficking. Addressing the media people, Dr. Rajbhandari said that an effective coordination among National Human Rights Commission, different national human rights organisations, political parties, social organisations, civil society, employment agencies and law enforcement agencies was necessary to prevent girl trafficking in Nepal. On top of that, poverty and ignorance are the major cause of girl trafficking. Programmes, thus, need to be launched to attack poverty, create employment opportunities, provide access to education and raise awareness in order to check girl trafficking.