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COVER STORY |
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COVER STORY |
RESCUED GIRLS Rejected by their families
and society, many girls who are rescued from the brothels in India again end up in the
same profession. With high hopes of rehabilitation and reintegration in their community, a
large number of girls rescued from different brothels in India come back home. However,
their hopes fast give away to desperation a few months after their arrival in their own
country. After giving a few months of counseling and training, non-governmental
organizations - which take the responsibility of early rehabilitation – send the
girls to their villages for reintegration. However, instead of warmth and hospitality,
rejection and hatred await many of them. Bound by superstition and age-old beliefs,
villagers and even family members treat them as pariahs. At the end, many of such girls
have no option other than to return to their old profession to make their livelihood By KESHAB POUDEL As soon as the girls and women staying at
the Maiti Nepal’s Rehabilitation Center started their cultural performance, the
jam-packed crowd at the Royal Nepal Academy’s hall realized that there is no dearth
of talents among these girls many of who have been rescued from various brothels. Organized by Maiti Nepal, an organization
working against girl trafficking, the women and girls living at the center exhibited their
confidence at the two-hour-long show by singing, dancing and even playing orchestra.
Supported by prominent Nepali singers Sukmit Gurung, Ram Krishna Dhakal and Rabin Sharma,
the girls and women of Maiti Nepal had reasons to rejoice. Not all the girls and children are lucky
enough to stand in front of big crowd like those who are receiving shelter at Maiti Nepal.
There are many other rescued girls whose cycle end again at the brothels in India or in
cabin/dance restaurants in Nepal. The girls who return to the prostitution are prone to
HIV spread. Kanchi Lama, 24, (name changed on the
request), who was rescued two years ago from Pune, India is now working in one of the
dance restaurants in capital. Lama, HIV positive, left the village a few months after she
was sent back home for reintegration. “For a couple of months, all my family members
and my neighbors loved me. As soon as I revealed that I was infected by the disease,
everyone started hating and isolating me. Nobody even touched me. After living in
isolation for a couple of weeks, I decided to move away from my village to go back to
Pune. On the way, I met one of my friends in Kathmandu who took me to a cabin
restaurant,” said Lama. In cabin restaurants, too, Lama is expected “to please
the customers” in any way she can. “Some of my friends who were also
rescued together have already left the country and have returned to India,” said
Lama. “How can you stay back home where you have to face the rejection and
discrimination every single minute,” asked Lama. Lama is not the only such case. Even the
girls – who were recently rescued from circus in Utter Pradesh, India, threatened to
return to circus in case they did not get the suitable them. Mona,14, a girl recently
rescued from circus, told the reporters that she would return to circus in case she was
not rehabilitated. “Those who have rescued us must realize the problems we will face
in future. I will return to circus in case I cannot find a job in Nepal.” Similarly, Devi, another girl was very
frustrated at having to give answers to so many people. “Undermining our pain and
tragedy, those who asked us questions gave more pain,” Devi said. “We were
betrayed by NGOs since we were taken out without getting salary and our clothes.” Out of 2,000 girls rescued from Indian
brothels in the last ten years only seventy percent have been reintegrated into society.
Remaining thirty percent - who returned with high hopes of integration with their families
- have been compelled to return to their old profession. Some of them have even returned
to their earlier working places in India, whereas others have joined nightclubs and dance
restaurants in the cities within Nepal. “When we were brought to capital,
there were many organizations to give us assurance and good life. After a few months of
rehabilitation at the centers, we were put into another hell,” said a rescued girl. Annually, about 200 girls are rescued from
different Indian brothels by Indian police and NGOs. Following the short-term
rehabilitation in India, the girls are handed over to the non-governmental organizations
in Nepal. Once inside their country, the girls are first given short counseling at the
rehabilitation centers in the capital Kathmandu and then are sent back to their family for
integration. "What NGOs have been doing is bringing
back the rescued girls from India to Nepal and handing them over to their relatives
without considering social surroundings of villages. Therefore, the rehabilitation and
integration program has not been as effective as rescue operation," said a senior
lawyer and women rights activist Shanta Thapaliya. "Girls who are sent for
reintegration often return back to their old world when they face intense discrimination
in family. Many girls feel safe to be in brothel rather than to reintegrate in
villages." The government and UN agencies estimate
that 5,000 to 7,000 girls are sold to brothels in India for prostitution annually and
there are about 200,000 Nepalese girls working as prostitutes in different Indian cities. Stigma and Bad Attitudes The study conducted by the International
Labor Organization (ILO-Nepal) 2002 on trafficking of girls with special reference to
prostitution shows that majority of reintegrated and rehabilitated girls are not leading
normal lives due to social stigma and attitudes towards such girls in society.
Ritu Lama, 18, (name changed) staying at a
Kathmandu rehabilitation center, worries about her future, saying, " The training I
am receiving will not be sufficient for my future life. A staff member often abuses us
verbally, I am not much happier here than I was in Mumbai brothel." Kalpana Bista, 17, spent eight months in a
brothel in Mumbai before an Indian NGO rescued her. She now lives at a rehabilitation
center in Kathmandu. "If my mother comes to know that I had spent last eight months
in an Indian brothel, she might commit suicide. Therefore, I do not want to go to my house
now. Only after I become able to support myself, will I visit my mother." Ganga Basnet, 21, has her own painful story
to tell. Two years ago she was sent to her home with the parents. People in her village
treated her as a prostitute. Among her family and friends, she was treated like pariah. Unable to cope with the isolation, she
returned to Kathmandu. Ganga is now working in a dance restaurant where she entertains the
clients. "This life is better than the life in family where everyone hates me,"
she said. According to a study conducted by
International Labor Organization (ILO - Nepal) in November 2001, there is a high stigma in
some villages where the death rates (from HIV/AIDS) among the girls who have returned from
Mumbai is very high. During the last two years alone fifteen girls died of HIV/AIDS in a
single village of Sindhupalchowk district, located 50 miles north of capital. A report released by the US Secretary of
State Colin L. Powell recently - the Fourth annual report on Trafficking in Person by US
Department of State - also noted that the government provides limited funding to local
NGOs to provide assistance for rehabilitation, medical care and legal services (to rescued
girls) in Nepal. A considerable number of girls rescued form
the brothels suffer from different diseases - most of them from HIV/AIDS. As such, their
return to old profession may trigger an alarming situation in society. Rehabilitation Centers Since the government does not have any
long-term policy for rehabilitation centers, it is the NGOs that take care of this major
task. Thanks to inadequate budgets, small space as well as small staff members, the NGOs
are in no position to place the rescued girls in the rehabilitation centers. Along with Maiti Nepal, which is one of the
largest and leading NGOs to give shelter to trafficked women, ABC, Women's Rehabilitation
Center (WOREC) and other couple of NGOs have been running the shelter homes. As the policies and aims of such NGOs are
to give temporary shelter before sending them back home for reintegration, no one can
expect to have a long-term shelter. Thanks to traditional forms of training, the
rehabilitated women cannot find job they are trained for. One of the major weaknesses of the NGOs and
the government is that there is hardly any follow up programs. Once the girls are handed
over to the community, many NGOs wash their hands off. Maiti Nepal has already rehabilitated more
than 400 girls rescued from brothels in last eight years and is now giving shelter to 100
girls at its rehabilitation centers. Lack of Approach A study conducted by the Institute for
Integrated Development Studies (IIDS) and United Nations Development Fund for Women
(UNIFEM) on Status and Dimensions of Trafficking Within Nepalese Context, points out lack
of rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration Policy. “The center-based rehabilitation is
concerned only with perspective measures. Rehabilitation is not only a means of providing
a victim with a place to live in and food to eat, but is a long process of socialization.
Psychological counseling, health service and treatment, legal service, skill training,
employment opportunities and recreation also must form part of rehabilitation. The
reintegration process ensures that women and children take part in the decision making
process that addresses their needs, wants and dreams,” the report states. “Monitoring and follow-up mechanisms
to ensure whether the reintegrated survivors are spending normal life or are being
re-victimized by society are very weak. The organizations working with survivors accepted
that they needed to strengthen their follow-up and monitoring mechanisms. This requires
quality human resources and funds. There are cases of re-trafficking and re-victimization
after the survivors were sent back to their families.” Some NGOs have been fulfilling its best
efforts to include all the components in its rehabilitation programs. Led by Anuradha
Koirala, a prominent figure working against the cause of girl trafficking, Maiti Nepal has
shown a new way adding recreation as a part of rehabilitation. "We have reports that some girls have
already returned to their old profession in India. I am proud to say that those girls, who
were sent by our organization for reintegration in the village, are living happy life in
their family. Some of them have even married," said Bishworam Khadka, general
secretary of Maiti Nepal. "At a time when matters related to rehabilitation and
reintegration is ignored by the government, only NGOs have been taking up this task,"
said Khadka. Under the support of the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP), Maiti Nepal and Women's Rehabilitation Center (WOREC)
have launched a project aiming to mobilize youths, and others in communities for
prevention of trafficking and HIV; as well as for rehabilitation and non-discrimination of
girls who are repatriated. WOREC's program aims to enhance
understanding of the issues, build capacities of women and girls at-risk, promote safe
mobility, and facilitate the reintegration of girl returnees into their communities in
Nepal. Agro-forestry, Basic Health Cooperatives
–Nepal (ABC-NEPAL) too has been providing shelter to the girls rescued from
brothels in India. The ABC has also some successful stories of reintegration. Headed by
Durga Ghimire, a woman activist, ABC has also some successful story on reintegration.
"Since the government does not have
any rehabilitation and reintegration program, we have to take care of all the important
tasks with limited resources," said Laxmi Pokharel, director of ABC-Nepal. ABC has
already rehabilitated 300 girls rescued from India and is currently giving shelter to 50
such women. "Since we don't have adequate fund to
keep the girls in our shelter home for a long period of time, we have to hand them over to
their family for reintegration. Many girls rescued from Indian brothels are compelled to
return to prostitution when they are rejected by society," said Pokharel. Key strategy of WOREC's project is to
develop in-country and cross border co-operation and networking with the NGOs,
governmental bodies and border police in Nepal and India in order to facilitate the
voluntary reintegration of trafficked women and girls. UNDP is also supporting the Ministry of
Women, Children and Social Welfare to launch a Joint Initiative Against Trafficking in
Girls and Women (JIT). The program launches the counter-trafficking efforts in Nepal
ranging from awareness campaign on the ills of trafficking to effective reintegration of
returnees. JIT focuses less on short-term assistance to survivors of trafficking. "We are encouraging NGOs to work in
the areas of rehabilitation and reintegration. The government is involved in the areas of
awareness-raising and improvement in the law enforcement," said Shyam Sundar Sharma,
spokesperson at the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare as well as a National
Program Coordinator of the JIT. "The government is planning to find out ways to
prevent girls from returning back to brothels. The government does not have any plan to
set up rehabilitation centers but we will support the NGOs' efforts." Nepal Police has also established a
separate women cell to better coordinate girl trafficking issue. "We provide
necessary legal support to those girls who are going to be reintegrated into
society," said Deputy Superintendent of Police Geeta Upreti. The women cell has 19
centers in 17 different districts. With the upsurge of the Maoist insurgency,
the situation has become more complicated in rural areas. At a time when many other rural
population are deserting their native villages, the NGOs are having tough time sending
girls to reintegrate back to their families who mostly reside in rural villages. "After the intensification of the
insurgency, we cannot compel the girls to go to their home. So, often we give them
skill-oriented training required to rehabilitate in the urban areas," said Pokharel.
"If we don't provide long term rehabilitation programs, many girls will prefer to
return to their old profession." “There is no long-term commitment made
by the funding agencies even in respect of those programs that demand such commitment,
such as for rehabilitation and reintegration,” writes IIDS report. Lack of Coordination in From rescue to rehabilitation and
reintegration, there is virtually no coordination between the government and
non-governmental organizations. There is lack of coordination among the local NGOs working
in the areas of girl trafficking. “Most of the NGOs are working without
developing a definition of trafficking program strategy, and monitoring and assessment
indicators. Of the 36 NGOs included in this analysis, only six had developed working
definitions and strategies for program implementations,” the IIDS report states. Most of the girls in Indian brothels are
either rescued in a regular police raid or with the support from the local NGOs in India.
Following the spread of HIV, Indian police frequently raid the brothels and only those who
are sick and are possibly infected by HIV were thrown out from brothel. “Most of the girls thrown out of the
Indian brothels are HIV positive and sick and only a few lucky girls return without any
deadly disease,” said Lama. “ I don’t think any new girls trapped in the
Indian brothels can return to Nepal as long as she is fit for prostitution.” Since the process for repatriation of
trafficked girls at the government level is lengthy, the NGOs of two countries decide the
fate of the rescued girls. In many cases, the government is even unaware about the rescue
operations. “The rescue, rehabilitation and
reintegration is the job of NGOs and we are just informed when the girls reach Nepalese
border side,” said an official at the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare
on condition of anonymity. “NGOs are working like governments and we government
officials like their shadows.” |
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