Are you or a female member of your family planning to go abroad in search of better prospect or a better work? If so, think carefully and think twice before you make such important decision. It has been found in recent years that most of the women who strive to go to foreign countries for employment find themselves being sold by human traffickers. Due to the Nepal-India open border, some agents find women-trafficking a profitable business these days. What appears is that, these agents happen to be crafty fellows, who deceive women of rural areas with their luring stories of how much money they can earn once they go abroad. Eventually several women fall prey to such false stories. Women surrender to men with high hopes and aspirations of going abroad where they believe their life becomes lot much easy.
The main route for women trafficking is the Indian border of Raksaul, from where they are sent to other cities like Mumbai and Delhi. Their fake passports to enter Gulf countries are made in these cities and the agents handover these women to Gulf agents, who are responsible for taking them to their final destination. The agents get handful of money for supplying women and their job ends there. And the dreams of those poor women get shattered when they finally realize that they have not taken as domestic workers but have been sold to some rich elites as sex workers.
Various NGOs have been working in border areas to stop these illegal activities of human flesh but the efforts are simply not enough, and there is a need of more intensive involvement from all sectors of society. Service Awareness Centre and Maiti Nepal are among many organizations involved in border cites to stop women trafficking. Both organizations claim that significant numbers of women have been saved from being sold in the past years. The data of Maiti Nepal says it has saved 232 women in 2008 and 172 women until the month of November alone. But the fact and figures are far smaller than the actual number of women who are trafficked each year. Several meetings between security officials of India and Nepal are held annually to tackle the issue but have so far proved ineffective and the government has failed to address the issue effectively.
There is no accurate statistics on number of women trafficked from Nepal. The country has Human Trafficking Act 2043 to tackle these illegal activities but the government finds itself in a difficult position to implement the act effectively. The then government had even registered the “Human Trafficking Act” on 10th Falgun 2058 BS. The government is well informed about the illegal activities but has done very little to enforce the law.
