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

A Rapid Assessment
Table 5.3:
Households of Trafficked Girls by
Land/Home Ownership and Occupation
Per cent
Land and Home Ownership
Without a home 14.1
Without farm land 28.2
Holding without land 1 (national 32.1
average, 1993)
Occupation
Own farm 52.9
Agriculture (wage) 7.1
Non-agriculture (wage) 16.5
Others 23.5
Total 85
5.2.3 Dysfunctional Families
The survey data indicate that one of the main
causes of trafficking is “dysfunctional families.” A
considerable number of respondents reported that they
were maltreated in their maternal households, and a
large proportion of them had migrated to urban areas
due to stepparents’ physical torture, domestic violence,
sexual abuse, beating and/or alcoholism. More than
three-fifths of the respondents had experienced at least
one type of maltreatment from their original family
members. The major forms of maltreatment included
mental torture (30.6%), physical abuse and beating
(20.0%), failure to provide food (2.4%), and failure
to send to school (12.9%). Three respondents were
thrown out of their households (Table 5.4).
Table 5.4: Maltreatment in Households of
Trafficked Girls
Form of
maltreatment 1
Per
cent
None 38.8
Mental 30.6
Physical 20.0
Malnutrition 2.4
No School 12.9
Thrown out 3.5
Other 3.5
Number 85.0
1 Source: NSAC, 1998 (Annex 7..3)
2 Note that these terms have different connotations for different people. It was not
possible to explain what the respondents meant by “physical abuse.” Still, the
high rate of respondents reporting maltreatment indicated they came from
dysfunctional households.
Multiple marriage and remarriage associated
with large family size further leads to the vulnerability
of children (Table 5.5) 1 . One fourth of the respondents
(24.7%) had stepmothers, and seven in 85 had
stepfathers (7/85). All the research tools we employed,
such as focus group discussions, key informant interviews
and case studies, suggest that children are deprived
of education, nutritional food intake and affection
and care if their own parents, particularly the
mother, are absent.
Table 5.5: Presence of Parents in Household
Family status Per cent
Both parents alive 51.7
Father alive only 16.5
Mother alive only 20.0
Stepfather 8.2
Stepmother 24.7
When Geeta was five, her mother died and
her father remarried. Geeta’s stepmother
used to torture her physically and psychologically.
Geeta was not sent to school. She
eventually came to Kathmandu to work in a
carpet factory, but was not paid. She was
lured by a trafficker who sold her to a brothel
in Bombay. Now 21, Geeta is reintegrated
at Chitwan.
With little education and knowledge of employment
skills outside the household, most women and
girls face extreme economic difficulties if a breadwinner
dies, divorces or abandons them. This is even
more severe if the household is marginalized with little
or no land. Still, in half of the cases both parents were
alive, and thus absenteeism of biological parents cannot
be considered the most important explanation for
trafficking.
Nanu was seven when her father died, and
her mother did what was necessary to feed
Nanu and her older brother: she engaged in
prostitution. When Nanu was thirteen, her
mother’s clients began to use her, offering
better prices for the young girl than they paid
the mother. Now fifteen, Nanu engages is
prostitution in Nepalgunj.
1 The average family size of the respondents was six, which is slightly higher than
the national average.
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