Nepal: UNFPA keeping girls safe from traffickers

Bhopal, Sept 26: Every year, an estimated 12,000 Nepalese women and girls are trafficked into India, says the UNFPA State of World Population 2006 Report entitled 'A Passage to Hope: Women and International Migration'.

The ADB estimates that one to two lakh Nepalese women and girls are held against their will in Indian brothels, with roughly 25 per cent under the age of 18 years. Traffickers typically lure impoverished girls with promises of jobs in urban areas or abroad.

Some families knowingly send their daughters to brothels because they consider them a burden.

Several of the victims are illiterate and unaware that they have been taken across the border. The Nepal Government has identified 26 districts from which women and girls have disappeared.

The Reproductive Health Initiative for Youth in Asia (RHIYA), a EU-UNFPA partnership working in collaboration with NGOs, is focussing on 19 ''high-risk'' impoverished districts. The programme educates parents, community leaders, district health officials and young people about the dangers of trafficking.

It also provides girls and young women with training and empowerment opportunities.

Trafficking survivors are reintegrated into their communities through efforts designed to reduce stigmatisation and are referred to social and legal services for additional assistance.

The initiative is proving effective. In the district of Prasauni VDC, a RHIYA peer educator was able to rescue three adolescent girls the very same day they were scheduled to depart. She had learned that the young men who had promised the girls work were, in fact, traffickers.

After the peer educator raised the alarm, villagers caught the traffickers and handed them over to the police. They soon admitted their guilt.

In Rupandehi district, a young woman was asked by her brother-in-law to accompany him on a one-day shopping trip to Gorakhpur, just across the border. But when she arrived at the crossing, her brother-in-law introduced her to two other girls and asked her to accompany them into India, claiming that he would join them later after taking care of some personal business.

She became alarmed, recalling the RHIYA educational sessions on trafficking, and realised that her brother-in-law must be a trafficker. She immediately sought help from the border NGO Maaiti Nepal and all the girls were returned safely to their homes.

UNI