Human Trafficking in Nepal: The Push Factors and Pushback

Samriddhi Sapkota’s article is additionally featured in The Generation’s Spring 2022 Digital Print Edition:Women. Coming June 1st 2022.

When Nepal signed the Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship with India in 1950, the nation certainly was not expecting to face one of the greatest human rights crises in the South Asian region. Intended to reflect their long-standing friendly diplomatic relations and act as a strategic security alliance, the treaty opened up the almost 1,100-mile border between Nepal and India and enabled citizens of each respective country to pass freely.¹ This agreement was fundamental to the socio-economic development of Nepal, providing the nation with vital resources from India to develop many of its economic and social sectors including basic infrastructure, healthcare, education, and human resource development.² Yet, even with the treaty’s efforts to establish the border between Nepal and India as a symbol of peace, the agreement ultimately opened the door to grave atrocities towards women and children. The vast area that the border covers, combined with limited border resources and security capabilities, has created the perfect formula to orchestrate the trafficking of women and girls from Nepal to India with greater ease. 

The NGO ABC Nepal first raised awareness of the phenomenon occurring at the border in the 1980s, when they discovered that countless women and girls were being taken from Nepal and sold into sex trafficking, labor trafficking, and organ trafficking in India.³ Today, the Nepal-India border is considered to be one of the busiest human trafficking gateways in the world, with approximately 30,000 women and girls trafficked each year.⁴ Because traveling  across the border between these two nations does not require any visa or documentation, border security tends to be extremely weak. A large portion of the border cuts through the Tarai region of Nepal, an area that has a large population of people of Indian origin due to the proximity to the border. Yet, the Tarai region only has 22 check posts that generally monitor international trade rather than surveillance of people, making it one of the easiest places to traffick innocent women who travel to the area for work.⁵ Moreover, Nepali girls are considered to be especially attractive in India due to their lighter skin tone, alongside the perception that Nepali virgins can ‘cure’ AIDS.⁶ 

Although the open border certainly contributes to the trafficking rates, the issue of human trafficking in Nepal is a result of many more complex factors besides border security. In recent years, trafficking has only been exacerbated by degrading circumstances in Nepal, including poverty, social discrimination, natural disasters, and political instability, which has tied the hands of the government to address human trafficking at its roots. Ultimately, with the government at a standstill, local organizations have begun to take matters into their own hands.

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a GDP per capita of $1155.14.⁷ As such, the most common push factors for human trafficking are poverty and unemployment. Though rich in natural resources, particularly in its water resources, Nepal has still not been able to utilize these assets and establish any large industry on which to base its economy. And while the nation has the land and capability to mass-produce agricultural products, outdated farming practices make it difficult to establish a widescale agricultural industry. Without a representative industry, Nepal has a difficult time attracting foreign direct investment, the key to kickstarting economic growth. Consequently, Nepal relies on other countries, particularly India, to acquire the majority of its goods. With a stagnant economy and an overreliance on imported goods, poverty and unemployment rates remain high. It is estimated that in 2019, 17.4% of Nepali people, around 5 million individuals, were considered to be multidimensionally poor, which includes lacking access to housing, clean cooking fuel, nutrition, and years of schooling.⁸ Additionally, according to the World Bank, the unemployment rate in 2020 was 4.7%, a sharp increase from the previous year’s rate of 3.09%.⁹ 

Given these dire economic prospects, it is not unusual for many Nepali women and girls to either look for work outside of the country or be sent by their families to make extra income. Common tactics used by traffickers include promises of work, opportunities, marriage, and other good fortunes available abroad, which is usually enough to convince the women or their families that opportunities outside of the country are better than prospects at home.¹⁰ Women and girls who face domestic violence at home, lack familial support, or live in rural areas are at even greater risk of falling victim to these tactics, as their desperation to escape their circumstances at home and their general lack of resources make them even more likely to believe the promises made by traffickers.¹¹ 

Poverty and unemployment are worsened by ongoing natural disasters at home. In 2015, Nepal experienced one of the most devastating earthquakes in its history, which killed almost 9,000 people and severely disrupted the nation’s social and economic structures.¹² The earthquake left many women and children without homes or a livelihood. Numerous children who were orphaned or left without work were forced to move further away from home in search of employment. This made them even more vulnerable to tactics used by traffickers to lure them into lucrative practices abroad. It is estimated that around 12,000 children are trafficked into India every year, mainly for sexual exploitation but are also often sent to work in fisheries, construction sites, circuses, sweatshops, and sometimes even sent into the illegal organ trade.¹³ The market for organ trafficking, in fact, was found to have expanded as a result of the 2015 earthquake and the subsequent worsening of poverty.¹⁴ 

Social discrimination against women is another consequential push factor that forces women and girls out of their homes and into dangerous work abroad. More specifically, caste-based and gender-based discrimination continues to be a major problem in Nepal today, despite strides made by the government to eradicate such practices in public and private settings. This is because instances of discrimination are generally not enforced to the highest degree.¹⁵ As a result, women and those from the Dalit class, formerly referred to as the “untouchable” caste, remain considerably behind the majority groups in Nepal both in terms of their economic prospects and representation in politics.¹⁶ The intersectionality of these identities also has a large impact on the vulnerability of women and girls to trafficking. NGOs in Nepal report that low-caste girls living in the Terai region of Nepal and in early and forced marriages were significantly more vulnerable to sex traffickers.¹⁷

Finally, political instability and corruption within the government make it difficult to punish traffickers even if they are caught. For one, even though the Nepali government has passed anti-trafficking laws, they generally have not been strictly enforced. Most notably, Nepal became the 176th country to ratify the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking Persons, especially Women and Children, also referred to as the Palermo Protocol, in June 2020.¹⁸ Nevertheless, the government has yet to make serious changes to its existing laws to implement the conditions of the protocol, which most importantly includes promoting cooperation with other states that have also ratified the protocol to combat trafficking.¹⁹ Because most of the trafficking that occurs out of Nepal entails foreign employment, implementation of the Palermo Protocol into the existing anti-trafficking laws in Nepal is a vital first step that the government must take to protect the women and girls who are sent to work across the border. 

Moreover, many individuals who are in charge of trafficking women and girls have deep political connections within the government. Several NGOs in Nepal have claimed that there are many police officers and political party leaders that are complicit in sex trafficking and the adult entertainment sector establishments where women and girls are forced to work.²⁰ Hence, even when traffickers are arrested for their crimes against women and children, they can call upon their political connections and prevent any prosecution. The government has not made any significant efforts to investigate or prosecute any individuals for bonded labor and instead continues to misidentify the bulk of transnational labor trafficking cases simply as labor violations, which are generally resolved without a criminal investigation and result in short and insufficient sentences.²¹

Furthermore, some actions that have been taken by the government have actually created more problems for female migrant workers. In reaction to the rising cases of trafficking and sexual abuse, the Nepali government has continually passed measures to ban women under the age of 40 from traveling abroad to work without the consent of their families and local ward offices.²² This proposal has been met with intense public backlash, as it targets the already vulnerable women instead of attempting to dismantle the systems and trafficking networks in place that perpetuate the issue.²³ The mandate fuels existing systems of oppression against women, who are already disadvantaged in social and economic circles and thus have difficulties finding work. Moreover, women who are unable to legally migrate out of the country for work might resort to illegal pathways to support themselves or their families, providing an even easier gateway for traffickers to take advantage of their dire circumstances.  

As evident from the push factors that increase the risk of falling victim to trafficking tactics to the lack of closure they receive even if their perpetrators are caught, Nepali women and girls are being underserved in every possible avenue. However, unlike the government, local communities are not simply sitting back and watching these atrocities unfold. Even though the government has been unable to make any notable progress to address human trafficking, countless numbers of NGOs in Nepal have stepped up to the job and been quite successful in their work to combat trafficking. These NGOs do a wide array of work including monitoring the Nepal-India border, collaborating with police officials to intercept women at the border or working in lucrative businesses in India, operating safe homes, and providing the necessary tools for rehabilitation.²⁴ The majority of NGOs provide education and access to vocational skills for rescued women and children, such as sewing, cooking, housekeeping, and beauty, that they can utilize to find and establish a stable income.²⁵ There are also a number of rescued women that have themselves assumed roles in anti-trafficking NGOs to address the problem. Survivors are often seen stationed at monitoring booths set up by NGOs at the Nepal-India border questioning suspicious individuals and cross-checking information to determine whether women and girls who are traveling to India are indeed safe.²⁶ There is also an NGO established in 1996 called Shakti Samuha which became the world’s first organization that was established and run by women who were survivors of human trafficking.²⁷

In addition to the work done on the ground, many NGOs have also taken the initiative to research and document trafficking. Nepal does not yet have a centralized database system for trafficking on a governmental level and the illegal nature of the act makes it that much more difficult to track. Thus, the majority of information regarding trafficking in Nepal comes directly from NGO publications, hence why there is a lack of concrete figures and numbers on the issue. NGO publications are also limited in their scope, as they tend to include anecdotal cases, newspaper reports, and commentaries from the agencies that are conducting the research.²⁸ Despite the shortcomings of the research that NGOs have done, the extent to which trafficking has been documented through these organizations has played an essential role in bringing light to the issue of trafficking. NGO publications are a pivotal reason why the government has begun to act on trafficking in Nepal, even if these actions have not been quite effective.

For many Nepali women and girls who have been victims of trafficking, the work that is being done by NGOs to raise awareness for and combat the problem provides a small glimmer of hope for their futures. Even so, the process of reintegrating back into society following their rescue still presents its own difficulties. Women who had been able to earn money before returning to their homes are more readily accepted and more likely to be able to marry than those who return still carrying their debt or have become sick.²⁹ Social stigma surrounding trafficked girls has also been an incredible hurdle in the lives of women and girls who try to start a new life in their communities. Specifically, women who had previously been involved in sex work are often perceived as being ‘tainted,’ suggesting that their communities have already labeled them to be a lost cause.³⁰ 

Evidently, Nepal is still quite far from combating all of the factors that produce the conditions in which trafficking thrives. Nevertheless, the actions being taken by local organizations proves that Nepali people truly seek to address human trafficking, even if this means that they must take on the responsibility alone. NGO work has been pivotal to bringing the issue of human trafficking to the forefront of general discourse, shedding a light on the dangerous repercussions of Nepal’s current economic and political environment on women and girls. That being said, there is still much more work to be done. Because the issue finds roots in larger and much more complex problems that the country faces, it will require major changes in the government to dismantle the social, political, and economic inequities for women and girls. Anti-trafficking initiatives need to not only be more heavily enforced, but they should also be targeted towards supporting women when they look for work outside of the country instead of finding ways to prevent them from doing so. Domestically, security and economic opportunities for impoverished women and girls must improve so that they are not forced into situations where they can be taken advantage of by traffickers. Lastly, further education is necessary in vulnerable communities on the tactics commonly used by traffickers to lure women, alongside the impacts that gender-based discrimination has on increasing the risk of trafficking to occur. 

Endnotes

1. Maxine Betteridge-Moes. “Human trafficking persists during Covid at Indo-Nepal border.” University of London, November 26, 2020. Accessed February 20, 2022, ​​https://study.soas.ac.uk/indo-nepal-border-human-trafficking-persists-amid-pandemic/.
2. Embassy of Nepal – New Delhi, India. “Economic Relation.” Accessed February 20, 2022, https://in.nepalembassy.gov.np/economic-relation/.
3. Maxine Betteridge-Moes. “Human trafficking persists during Covid at Indo-Nepal border.” University of London, November 26, 2020. Accessed February 20, 2022, ​​https://study.soas.ac.uk/indo-nepal-border-human-trafficking-persists-amid-pandemic/.
4. Friends of WPC Nepal. “Trafficking in Nepal.” Accessed February 20, 2022, https://www.friendsofwpcnepal.org/nepal/. 
5. Geetanjali Sharma. Indo-Nepal Cross-Border Human Trafficking: A Rising Concern: International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts 6, no. 1 (2018): 1345-1354. https://ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT1802174.pdf. 
6. Human Rights Watch. “Rape For Profit: Trafficking of Nepali Girls and Women to India’s Brothels.” 1995. Accessed February 20, 2022. https://www.hrw.org/reports/1995/India.htm. 
7. The World Bank. “GDP per capita (current US$ – Nepal).” 2020. Accessed February 20, 2022, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=2020&locations=NP&start=2020&view=bar.
8. OPHI, UNDP, UNICEF. “Nepal Multidimensional Poverty Index 2021: Report.” September 2021. Accessed February 20, 2022, https://www.unicef.org/nepal/reports/nepal-multidimensional-poverty-index-2021-report#:~:text=In%202019%2C%2017.4%20percent%20of,schooling%2C%20assets%2C%20and%20nutrition. 
9. The World Bank. “Unemployment, total (% of total labor force) (modeled ILO estimate) – Nepal.” February 2022. Accessed February 20, 2022, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?locations=NP. 
10. Maxine Betteridge-Moes. “Human trafficking persists during Covid at Indo-Nepal border.” University of London, November 26, 2020. Accessed February 20, 2022, ​​https://study.soas.ac.uk/indo-nepal-border-human-trafficking-persists-amid-pandemic/.
11. ibid.
12. Violeta Santos Moura. “Spirit Me Away: The women and girls lost to trafficking in Nepal.” Al Jazeera, March 8, 2021. Accessed February 20, 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2020/3/8/spirit-me-away-the-women-and-girls-lost-to-trafficking-in-nepal.
13. ibid.
14. Dom Gallogly, Layla Hart, and Georgina Kassim. “Human Trafficking in Nepal.” Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2020. Accessed February 20, 2022, https://uprdoc.ohchr.org/uprweb/downloadfile.aspx?filename=8088&file=EnglishTranslation.
15. The World Bank. “Unequal Citizens: Gender, Caste, and Ethnic Exclusion in Nepal.” 2006. Accessed February 20, 2022, https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/745031468324021366/pdf/379660v20WP0Un00Box0361508B0PUBLIC0.pdf. 
16. ibid. 
17. U.S. Department of State. “2020 Trafficking in Persons Report: Nepal.” 2020. Accessed February 20, 2022, https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-trafficking-in-persons-report/nepal/
18. Chandan Kumar Mandal. “Nepal needs to amend human trafficking laws to fully enforce Palermo Protocol, experts say.” The Kathmandu Post, February 21, 2021. Accessed February 20, 2022, https://kathmandupost.com/national/2021/02/21/nepal-needs-to-amend-human-trafficking-laws-to-fully-enforce-palermo-protocol-experts-say.
19. ibid.
20. U.S. Department of State. “2021 Trafficking in Persons Report: Nepal.” 2021. Accessed February 20, 2022, https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-trafficking-in-persons-report/nepal/.
21. ibid. 
22. Lekhanath Pandey. “Nepal’s bid to deter women’s job migration draws fury.” DW, February 25, 2021. Accessed February 20, 2022, https://www.dw.com/en/nepal-women-migration-exploitation/a-56696325.
23. ibid.
24. Violeta Santos Moura. “Spirit Me Away: The women and girls lost to trafficking in Nepal.” Al Jazeera, March 8, 2021. Accessed February 20, 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2020/3/8/spirit-me-away-the-women-and-girls-lost-to-trafficking-in-nepal.
25. Maxine Betteridge-Moes. “Human trafficking persists during Covid at Indo-Nepal border.” University of London, November 26, 2020. Accessed February 20, 2022, ​​https://study.soas.ac.uk/indo-nepal-border-human-trafficking-persists-amid-pandemic/.
26. Violeta Santos Moura. “Spirit Me Away: The women and girls lost to trafficking in Nepal.” Al Jazeera, March 8, 2021. Accessed February 20, 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2020/3/8/spirit-me-away-the-women-and-girls-lost-to-trafficking-in-nepal.
27. Shakti Samuha. “Introduction.” Accessed February 20, 2022, http://shaktisamuha.org.np/about-us/introduction/.
28. Padam Simkhada. Life Histories and Survival StrategiesAmongst Sexually Trafficked Girls in Nepal: Children & Society 22, no. 3 (2008): 235-248. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2008.00154.x. 
29. ibid.
30. ibid.