Kanchanpur Hotbed For Women Trafficked From Nepal

The Indo-Nepal border is notorious for rampant trafficking between the two countries. And recent reports say that Nepal’s Kanchanpur has become the mid-point through which traffickers are sending women to India. A Nepal-based NGO that focuses on rehabilitation and fights against human trafficking, Maiti Nepal, has obtained data that shows trafficked women travel to India in the name of foreign employment in a big way.

The NGO also claimed that when it intervenes in the process along the border areas, the women say that they are going to Shimla for work or to meet their relatives in Delhi. “Our experiences show that their final destination is probably the third countries,” said Maiti Nepal Kanchanpur coordinator Maheshwori Bhatta, Setopati reported. He added that in many cases, traffickers use middlewomen to transport girls and women.

Human traffickers and middlepersons use the major border point, Gaddachauki, from which they can traffic women to India. It is also the shortest route from Nepal to New Delhi. Increasingly, many Nepalis have started moving to Bahrain, Kuwait, Dubai, Kuwait, Kirgizstan and Malaysia illegally thorough an India route.

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These offenders do not always send the women and girls to Indian brothels, they have contacts in other countries as well.

Relatives knowingly or unknowingly involve themselves in transporting women apparently going for foreign employment across the border, which has caused difficulties in rescue operations. Direct Kathmandu-New Delhi and Pokhara-New Delhi bus service has also helped the brokers

Maiti Nepal, Kanchanpur, rescues around 10 to 12 people every month from trafficking. “We saved some women from Kanchanpur sometime earlier from New Delhi airport from trafficking into Kuwait,” he said.

Monetary lure, unemployment, and poverty are main factors pushing women into the hands of traffickers, according to him.

Sindhupalchowk, Nuwakot, Kavrepalanchowk and Rasuwa are the places in Nepal that lose a number of its women to human trafficking via Indian route, claimed Bhatta.

“Relatives knowingly or unknowingly involve themselves in transporting women apparently going for foreign employment across the border. And it has caused difficulties in a rescue operation. Direct Kathmandu-New Delhi and Pokhara-New Delhi bus service has also helped the brokers a lot,” he said.

Last year, Maiti Nepal received 204 applications seeking whereabouts of women. “Of the total, we managed to find the status of 28 women. We have registered the applications seeking status of 55 missing women this year. Of them, we have found the whereabouts of 10 women,” he said.

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