Nepal Trafficking in Girls With Special Reference to Prostitution: A ...

A Rapid Assessment
Other reasons behind trafficking and sexual exploitation
are enumerated as poverty, illiteracy
(Mainali, 1993; O’Dea, 1993), lack of awareness, lack
of employment opportunity, low social status, lucrative
sex business, and slack administration. A range
of social, religious and cultural factors are also consistently
cited, including the Kamaiya system, feudal
rule, influence of village elite, money lenders, family
disruption, food scarcity, violence in the family, patriarchal
society, decline in moral values, as well as
the general exploitation of girls in the form of rape
and sexual abuse (Pradhan, 1993a; Rajbhandari, 1993).
Indeed, it is striking to find how most of the studies
contain long lists of potential and likely causes of traf-
Source
Acharya
1998
Koirala
1999
Pokhrel
1999
SAFHR
1997
Singh
1999
CWIN
1997
MWCSW
1998
Kathmandu
Post, 1997
Times of
India, 1989
Pradhan,
1991
Acharya
1998
India
Total
200,000
200,000
250,000
70,000
100,000
80,000
100.000
153,000
200,000
100,000
160,000
21.000
30,000
100,000
Nepal
Kathmandu
1.000
5,000
Bombay
40,000
50,000
Badi
7,000
Falkland
60,000
Deuki
17,000
Calcutta
17,000
27,000
Total
5,000
21,000
ficking, but prioritise and discuss these in an ad-hoc
and poorly coordinated manner 2 .
All studies reviewed here unanimously agree that
the consequences of trafficking for sexual exploitation
are disastrous, and strong emphasis is given to
the plight of girls who have returned with possible
exposure to HIV/AIDS (ABC Nepal, 1993). Unwanted
pregnancies, drug and alcohol addiction, growing sex
tourism, infant and maternal mortality, mental disorder
and more exploitation are also frequently mentioned
(Acharya, 1998). This has caused some commentators
to conclude that although His Majesty’s
Government of Nepal is a signatory to the United
Nations Convention on the
Rights of the Child (1989),
the problem of trafficking
Delhi Banars Gorkhapur has been changing from bad
to worse, and that as of yet
no concrete effort has been
made to tackle it (Pradhan,
1992).
3,480
4,700
Table 1.1: Speculative Estimates: Nepalese Women, Girls Trafficked for Sexual Exploitation
As for the solutions to
combat trafficking, these are
mostly general, such as
eradicating poverty, illiteracy
and increasing awareness
3 . Thus, although existing
studies have been extremely
helpful in bringing
public attention to the perceived
causes and consequences
of trafficking, the
questions of how to prevent
and control the age-old
problem of trafficking for
sexual exploitation have
been sacrificed in the name
of advocacy. A list of causes
and consequences of trafficking
reviewed has been
given in Annex 1.
7