Prevention of Trafficking community surveillance system

By Ganesh Bhattarai

Trafficking in Nepal is a social problem. This problem is directly related to women. All sectors have accepted that every year more than 7000 girls or women are sold to brothels in India and other countries. In order to satisfy the need and to fulfill the greed of male folk, women are easily treated like commodities and sold in the sex market. The practice of using girls for male pleasure originated in the palaces of the Rana rulers, a feudal family clan, who ruled the country despotically for 104 years. Their rule came to an end by a democratic revolution in 1951 AD. This was not only feudal in nature but also extremely brutal. This is evidenced from their practice to ban education. A lack of education is one factor, which contributes to the growing problem of the trafficking in women for prostitution. The Rana rulers used to draw many young girls for themselves and their courtiers from the neighboring hills of Nepal. This continued until the end of the Rana regime. As the trade of girls to the Rana palaces decreased, the traders diverted to the sex industry in Indian cities.

The patriarchal nature of Nepalese society dominates women on the basis of sex and marriage. It has a defective social structure. It is developed with the objective of dominating women on the grounds of their identity and sexuality and is exploited by the male mechanism. The characteristics of this defective value system are ignorance, a failure to invest in women or provide them with education, and the perception of women as the property of men, thus depriving them of opportunity. Consequently, the crimes like polygamy, child marriage, dowry, neglect and shame upon women have driven women into vulnerable situations. This vulnerability has been fertile ground for trafficking. The main causes of trafficking are the defective value system, poverty, ignorance, illiteracy and lack of awareness. Thus many pimps are successful in selling girls and women into prostitution through the medium of inducement and fake marriage. Girl children suffering from domestic violence and social exploitation have also been victims of inhuman and degrading activities like sexual exploitation and trafficking. Such sorts of problems and absurdities are increasing day by day in our society. Women in Nepal are compelled to live their life in vulnerability due to the defective value system and gender disparity in society.

Discrimination against women has been a serious social problem over the centuries. Gender discrimination against women occurs from infancy. The boy child receives preferential treatment compared to the girl child. Girl children are deprived of education, leisure time and many other rights guaranteed by the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child. Many girl children are dying of disease and malnutrition. The infant mortality rate of girls is greater than that of boys. These are some simple indications of less preferential treatment and medical care given to girls. The socio-cultural attitude towards woman is biased.

Legal fence posts can establish outer limits within which social practices are conducted. However, the existing legal system has declined to recognize the independent legal status of women. From birth, girl children are considered to be alien to the natal family. For centuries a negative social attitude towards women has been protected by the legal system itself. The legal system was founded on an idiosyncratic concept. It refuses to define girl children as members of the natal family. The existing legal system determining family membership is based on the concept of ancestral kinship and denies the ancestral connection of a daughter to her father’s family. With family membership comes a basic entitlement to the inheritance of family property. But girl children are deprived of this right. A woman’s membership of a family is governed by the institution of marriage. Women have no family before marriage. The act of marriage entitles a woman to membership of her husband’s family and enables her to inherit the property of her husband. This irrationality in the existing law is a source of discrimination against women classing them as dependent subjects or as commodities rather than as persons. This sort of defective value system is the main cause of trafficking of girls and women for prostitution.

The government has made attempts to respond to the problem by enacting the Human Trafficking (Control) Act 1986. The Human Trafficking (Control) Act 1986) is specific law relating to crimes of trafficking of human beings. Earlier there was a chapter in the General Code of Laws of the Land (Muluki Ain 1963) to deal with the crime as such. However this law was more concerned with the prohibition of trafficking of Nepalese girls for working in India. Obviously, the said law was not in any way related to the prevention of the sex trade.

The present Act prescribes strict penalties for those involved in any aspect of human trafficking and has specifically prohibited the sale and purchase of the human body for any purpose, including prostitution. The Act provides that taking persons to foreign countries for the purpose of trafficking, enticing or alluring women into prostitution by fraud, threat or any other means and encouraging others to do the same are criminal offenses punishable by a fine or twenty years imprisonment. However, the Act has a serious failing as it has not criminalized the act of separating a girl or woman from her legal guardian for the very purpose of trafficking for prostitution, thus to establish the crime, the girl or woman conceived must have crossed the border. Many people involved in these acts can thus escape justice. Moreover, the Act has no provision to punish the culprit involved in the purchase of the girl or woman. As clause 4 of the section on preliminary arrangement of the New Muluki Ain provides for the application of specific Acts to specific matters, the new law replaced the provision of the New Muluki Ain relating to human trafficking. Further more, section 11 of the Human Trafficking (Control) Act 1986 stipulates that no law should apply in matters covered by this Act.

Laws relating to trafficking are in existence, yet the problem is increasing. It is plaguing society more than before. Many INGOs, NGOs and GOS are involved in tackling and addressing the problem but the situation has remained the same. Many INGOs and NGOs have analyzed trafficking on the grounds of the victim’s situation profile. Their main finding of the cause of trafficking in girls and women is poverty but poverty is not the sole or main factor.

Although no official figures are available concerning the number of women trafficked into the Indian sex market, the general assumption is that the number is enormous. Every year 5000 to 7000 girls and women are trafficked to Indian brothels and Gulf countries from Nepali hill districts like Sindhupalchok, Nuwakot, Dhading, Makwanpur, Dolakha, Udaypur, Ramechhap, Kavrepalanchok, and Sindhuli. The problem has expanded to other border districts like Jhapa, Sunsari, Morang, Nawalparasi, Kapilvastu, Banke and Kanchanpur.

In the past, girls and women of a specific ethnic community were trafficked. But the problem of trafficking in girls and women has increasingly crossed the barriers of ethnicity and mountain geography. The listing of rescued girls and women demonstrate that Dalit females are fast becoming a very vulnerable social group. Traditionally imposed seclusion from the development mainstream, socio-cultures, economic and legal deprivation make Dalit girls and women easy prey for traffickers. (Condemned to Exploitation. Trafficking of Girls and women in Nepal by Yubaraj Sangroula)

Statistical information reveals that only a minority of trafficking cases have been investigated by the police. According to HMG Statistical year Book of Nepal 2001 120 cases were investigated by police from 1999 to 2000. This is an extremely minimal figure when compared to the numbers of the victims of trafficking. This figure indicates weakness on the part of the law as well as the enforcement agencies. One problem is that many perpetrators of trafficking have a very close link with politicians and some times even with the police. It is reported that approximately 35% of all sexual offenses are linked to politicians. (Gauri Pradhan Road to Bombay, Voice of Child Worker, Issue 15/16 page 48 Kathmandu Nepal)

The problem as such is closely associated with the increasing prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Nepal. It is believed that a large proportion of women already returned to Nepal have been infected with the HIV virus. A large percentage of Nepalese women who once worked in Indian brothels have presumably been infected with the HIV virus, as they have been visited by a large number of clientele.

In this perspective, the magnitude of problem can be easily imagined. On the one hand the problem of trafficking has been the worst form of exploitation of the female folk of Nepal as it has not only reduced them to marketable commodities but to a most inhuman condition of life. Trafficking for prostitution is a crime against the person and dignity of women and girls. So the act of trafficking violates the right to freedom of unrestricted movement, right to freedom of independence of person, right to physical and personal integrity, dignity and human respect, right to opportunities for personal development. (Condemned to Exploitation. Trafficking of Girls and women in Nepal by Yubaraj Sangroula). On the other hand the problem has an obvious linkage with the catastrophe of HIV/AIDS that threatens the very fabric of the Nepalese society, a society which is not only underdeveloped but also extremely handicapped due to geo-economic extremities.

We have a plethora of social welfare laws but they have been poorly implemented and managed and thus the law has remained a paper tiger. There are several reasons for this sad state of affairs, but the major ones are lack of political will, bureaucratic inefficiencies, judicial indifference and above all, lack of sensitivity on the part of people.

To combat this problem, the Center for Legal Research and Resource Development has established a Community Surveillance System Against Trafficking (CSSAT). The program has been expanded to cover 239 VDCs of different districts which are highly affected by trafficking. The main objective of CSSAT is the grassroots prevention of the trafficking of girls and women and the correction of a defective value system. So far, 239 VDCs level and 47 Regional level, ParaLegal Committees have been formed. These bodies have been active at grassroots level to break the citadel of the organized crime of trafficking.

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