Criminal
networks using cover of rescue effort to target poor rural communities in
country from which an estimated 15,000 girls are trafficked a year, warn NGOs
By Jason Burke
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Armed
Nepalese police help people in Sindhupalchok district board a helicopter to
Kathmandu
after
last month’s earthquake. Photograph: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters
|
Tens of thousands of young women from regions
devastated by the earthquake inNepal are being targeted by human traffickers
supplying a network of brothels across south Asia, campaigners in Kathmandu and
affected areas say.
The 7.8-magnitude quake, which killed more
than 7,000 people, has devastated poor rural communities, with hundreds of
thousands losing their homes andpossessions. Girls and young women in these
communities have long been targeted by traffickers, who abduct them and force
them into sex work.
The UN and local NGOs estimate 12,000 to
15,000 girls a year are trafficked from Nepal. Some are taken overseas, to
South Korea and as far as South Africa. But the majority end up in Indian
brothels where tens of thousands are working in appalling conditions.
“This is the time when the brokers go in the
name of relief to kidnap or lure women. We are distributing assistance to make
people aware that someone might come to lure them,” said Sunita Danuwar,
director of Shakti Samuha, an NGO in Kathmandu. “We are getting reports of
[individuals] pretending to go for rescuing and looking at people.”
Senior western aid officials in the Nepalese
capital are also concerned. “There is nothing like an emergency when there is
chaos for opportunities to … traffic more women. There is a great chance that
everything that is bad happening in Nepal could scale up,” said one.
Sita, 20, told the Guardian how she had been
taken from her village in Sindhupalchok, the hill area north of Kathmandu, to
the Indian border town of Siliguri where she was sold to a brothel owner,
repeatedly beaten, systematically raped by hundreds of men and infected with
HIV. “I do not have nightmares about my time there. I have erased it from my
memory,” she said.
Last month’s quake killed more than 3,000
people in Sindhupalchok, and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
“The earthquake will definitely increase the
risk of abuse,” said Rashmita Shashtra, a local healthworker. “People here are
now desperate and will take any chance. There are spotters in the villages who
convince family members and local brokers who do the deal. We know who they
are.”
Sita, who was rescued last year, was taken by
an uncle “for a job” in India. Her parents, who are subsistence farmers and
illiterate, believed assurances she would have a good job and be able to send
back her wages.
In the brothel in Siliguri, Sita was forced
to have unprotected sex with up to 20 or 30 men a day, seven days a week for a
year. When the premises was raided by police, she told officials she wanted to
return home and was handed over to an NGO.
“I am worried now for the other girls who
might be taken away. They will need the money and be tempted if someone talks
to them about a job. Then the same thing will happen to them as happened to
me,” Sita said.
Nepal, one of the poorest countries in Asia,
is the focal point of well organised smuggling networks dealing in everything
from tiger skins to precious woods, from narcotics to people.
The Guardian’s Pete Pattisson reports from
Barkobot, a Nepalese village hard hit by the earthquake
Danuwar said most of these criminal networks
were based in India, which made identification of traffickers difficult. The
gangs have representatives and agents looking for suitable women across Nepal,
but particularly in deprived rural areas such as Sindhupalchowk.
Many local agents do not know the eventual
destination of the women, with some genuinely believing they will find
well-paid work in Kathmandu or India. Others are well aware of the real nature
of their “jobs”. One ruse is to promise marriage to wealthy foreigners.
Kathmandu also has hundreds of bars and
massage parlours where women work in poor conditions, with many compelled to
have sex with clients. These women are recruited locally, again often in zones
hit hard by the quake. “Now [after the earthquake] it is going to be easy for
brokers,” said Danuwar.
The US State Department has said the Nepalese
government does not comply “with the minimum standards for the elimination of
trafficking” but “ is making significant efforts to do so”.
The uncle who abducted Sita was murdered by a
contract killer. Her parents remain unaware of exactly what happened to her,
though her brothers have found out. They have now disowned her. Victims of
sexual violence are frequently ostracised in south Asia, where they are seen as
having brought shame on their community.
Sita lives in a secret shelter run by Shakti
Samuha. She does not know what has happened to her parents in the earthquake.
For many days, communications to her remote village were cut. When she managed
to get a line through to a brother, he refused to acknowledge her. “He said he
had no sister and I had called a wrong number,” Sita said.
