National 9 (Spotlight Weekly)

Nepal in US Trafficking in Persons Report

By Bipin Adhikari

The U.S. Department of State released the annual Trafficking in Persons Report June 11, concluding, among other things, that the Kingdom of Nepal has not fully complied with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.

Nepal has a Constitution which guarantees against trafficking in human beings. Besides, the Human Trafficking Control Act of Nepal of 1986 prohibits selling persons and provides for penalties of up to twenty years imprisonment for traffickers. Some limited resources have also been provided to non-governmental organizations to make available victim assistance for rehabilitation, counselling, and medical care. Victims are not jailed, detained, or reported. Once a victim files a civil suit or makes a criminal complaint against a trafficker, the government will prosecute the case at no cost to the victim. Besides, the Governments of Nepal and India have also agreed to form a Joint Cross Border Committee against Trafficking in order to collaborate on investigations and more efficiently share information about traffickers. With these encouraging signals, the report says Nepal is making significant efforts to bring it into compliance with the minimum international standards.

The report, however, maintains that the legislation of 1986 does not criminalize the separation of minors from their legal guardians with the intent of trafficking. Thus, trafficking children out of Nepal may not be prosecutable as a crime until it is too late. Last year 92 cases against traffickers were taken to court; prosecution and sentencing statistics are not yet available.

The report categorically points out that Nepal's open land border with India does not allow for stringent monitoring. Border officials receive training from non-governmental and international organizations on how to recognize potential trafficking victims. Former trafficking victims patrol along side border officials and help them spot potential trafficking situations. Nepal is a source country of women and girls trafficked primarily to India for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and debt bondage. While the report accepts this fact, it fails to recommend effective regulation of international border. In fact, monitoring does not help where the international border is open, and the other side of the border has a strong network of police and mafia to profit from the trafficking.

The Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) at the U.S. Department of State recently approved $70,000 for two Indian NGO projects to develop and conduct training programs to improve anti-trafficking coordination among law enforcement officials and local NGOs. Strengthened law enforcement and prosecution of traffickers is critical because the crime remains a high profit, relatively low-risk transnational criminal enterprise. Improving coordination among law enforcement officials and NGOs serving victims ensures that traffickers are detected and punished, and that victims are afforded the protection and assistance they need to rebuild their lives. This funding will support interactive training for border officers, police, prosecutors and judges in Calcutta and New Delhi. Police and judicial officials will participate in workshops designed to assist in building successful prosecutions of traffickers and abettors. Border officers will also receive in-depth instruction on recognizing potential trafficking situations.

The State Department is contributing $200,000 to anti-trafficking activities specifically in India. This additional funding is part of a $1.5 million effort in the South Asia region using Economic Support Funds (ESF). Central to the strategy in India will be: strengthening enforcement of existing laws, supporting NGO shelters for victims of trafficking, and supporting rehabilitative programs, including skills training and income-generating activities.

But projects like them, and many others that are being implemented in Nepal cannot monitor the vices of open border in the trafficking scenario.

Mentioning that Nepali women travelling to the Middle East in search of work have been put into situations of coerced labour and other slave-like conditions, the Report states that internal trafficking also takes place in Nepal. Women are trafficked from rural areas to cities for commercial sexual exploitation and children are placed into debt bondage or other exploitative child labour by their impoverished parents. An ongoing Maoist insurgency has used violence to wrest control of remote areas from the government; many trafficking victims originate from those areas. The insurgents have forcibly conscripted girls and boys. But these problems could be gradually sorted out if the international border is adequately regulated and guarded.

The Report maintains that the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (MWCSW) supported local, regional, and national information campaigns on trafficking including radio and audio-visual programs, booklets, pamphlets, and signboards. As a pilot program, the government established "Village Vigilance Committees" in some districts to train local residents to recognize trafficking and alert authorities. The MWCSW publishes a newsletter and operates a program in 47 districts to emphasize the importance of sending children to school, a key component of the government's campaign to eliminate child labour. The Ministry of Labour requires all workers travelling overseas to attend an orientation session explaining worker rights and safety issues. Government-initiated income generating projects have been introduced in 3900 villages; those projects include providing micro credit loans, introducing savings programs, and encouraging female entrepreneurs.

What is missing from the Report is the reference about the National Human Rights Commission of Nepal (NHRC) which has already appointed the National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Women and Children to work with it in its mission to address human rights violations resulting from criminal activities of human trafficking. This is one of the important initiatives which must be acknowledged.

[Adhikari is a lawyer]