Forum (Spotlight Weekly)

Maiti Nepal Celebrates 10 Years of Rescuing Trafficked Girls

By Meg Dixit

Looking back at a successful decade, Maiti Nepal, a non-profit organization established in 1993 to fight trafficking of girls and women, celebrates the victories of those it has rescued from brothels and discotheques primarily in the Indian cities of Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi.

"About 5 to 7 thousand girls from remote villages are trafficked every year. Before Maiti Nepal was established, the situation was practically invisible, but in the past ten years, we have brought awareness to this problem and more importantly, we have rescued and rehabilitated a number of victims, " said Janit Ghalay, program officer at Maiti Nepal.

Ghalay joined the organization 2 years ago after she learned about the increasing number of trafficked girls.

"I had a strong urge to help when I heard the horrific stories of trafficking in my own back yard," she said.

This same feeling has brought together volunteers and paid staff to work together in preventing trafficking in Maiti Nepal's central office in Pingalasthan, Gaushala in Kathmandu as well as in district offices in the Nepal-India border and overseas.

The central office is located in a complex with a women's rehabilitation and a child protection home, as well as a school and a health care center.

The story of Maiti Nepal began 10 years ago when founder Anuradha Koirala, current chair of the organization, was struck by the numbers of girls and women she saw lying around the grounds of Pashupatinath temple during her daily visits for darshan.

She later learned about the trafficking problem and then, together with some colleagues in India, she planted the seeds that have sprung into the organization that is known today.

Koirala was appointed Assistant Minister for Children, Women and Social Welfare by His Majesty King Gyanendra and served from October 2002 to June 2003.

Today, Maiti Nepal's projects focus on: generating social awareness about trafficking through workshops, rallies and street dramas; conducting skill and income generating training programs; caring for destitute and orphaned kids in the childcare center and in the Teresa Academy school in its central office; providing surveillance through checkpoints in the vulnerable border towns of Dhangadhi, Kakarbhitta, Birgunj, Biratnagar (Jogbani Rani), Janakpur, and Pashupatinagar to spot pimps or victims; helping HIV/AIDS victims through the Sneha Griha, a 60-person hospice in Sattighatta in Jhapa, Eastern Nepal; providing free legal advice to victims of trafficking, rape and domestic violence; and engaging in rehabilitation for girls when they are brought back to Nepal.

"We learn about missing girls through reports filed by their families. We then work in collaboration with police and our branch offices to find the girls. If we find a girl, and if she is over 18 years, she has the legal right to stay where she is or to come home if she chooses to come back, then we offer all the programs we have free of charge for 6 months," said Ghalay.

The girls who are rescued and rehabilitated are severely traumatized and psychological relief can take up to a month before formal skill training in areas such as tailoring or farming is provided.

A micro-credit loan program is also offered. This allows a girl to borrow equipment from Maiti Nepal, like a sewing machine, in order to establish her own shop. Pay back to Maiti Nepal is not compulsory, and this program allows staff members to monitor the progress of the girl after her 6-month rehabilitation period is over.

Besides the rescue and rehabilitation efforts, the organization also works with law enforcement agencies to find and imprison offenders. In Nepal law, a person who has engaged in trafficking gets 75 years, while a person who is on the way to trafficking gets 15 years, and one who is planning to traffic gets 5 years (day and night count as 1 day so retention time is half this number).

Nepali girls continue to be popular in India because of their fair complexion, soft facial features and the ease of which they can be bought or abducted.

"In many cases, the girls are lured to India by Nepali or Indian pimps who promise them respectable jobs or marriage, but instead they are forced into prostitution with no way out," said Ghalay.

Those that have been rescued by Maiti Nepal are the reason the organization is commemorating 10 years of successful results. Statistics from the 2002 annual report of Maiti Nepal show that a total of 47 girls, 31 boys and 6 infants received support, while 14 girls and 13 boys were reunited with their families, 33 kids attended Teresa Academy and 6 infants stayed in the hostel.

But the picture of trafficking in Nepal continues to paint a bleak picture over the pristine Himalayan kingdom. Recent trends show that trafficking is increasing in the cities and that desperate families are selling their own children to earn some money.

"We are constantly trying to address the changing face of the crime, but it takes thorough research and necessary resources," added Ghalay.

Maiti Nepal is funded by private donations and grants from large foundations such as the Sonja Kill Foundation (largest benefactor), Save the Children (US and Norway) Provita, Help for Maiti Nepal Germany, and the Asia Foundation.

(Dixit is a freelance writer)