[Ed. Note: This article was originally published on Jan. 22, 2001, in The Rising Nepal, the daily newspaper owned by the Nepali government. The author is a lawyer associated with Lawyers Inc. in Nepal.]

The coalition of about 60 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) had just joined hands as a unified front to combat the trafficking of Nepalese women and girls when a gang of seven traffickers was arrested immediately in Kathmandu by the local police. In fact, news about the arrest of people for trafficking, their release and their rearrest have become an everyday phenomenon in Nepal. Another news story during the same week also noted that 21 girls were recently rescued from Indian brothels with the help of the Indian police and sent back to Nepal.

While fresh incidents of the trafficking of women and girls persist, those who are already worn out, HIV-infected and have lost their material value in the sex market continue to return home to Nepal. Traffickers do not fear the police or the legal regime that is put in place to prevent, counter or combat them. Corruption is pervasive everywhere, and the criminal justice system, as far as it relates to the police and local administration, is also not an exception. As such, the problem of trafficking in women and girls, an insidious form of violence, continues to flourish in Nepal.

There is no data, but a rough estimation indicates that thousands of Nepalese women and girls are trafficked to India annually. They are generally trafficked for the purpose of domestic servitude, sexual exploitation or forced labour, including prostitution. Many people think that such factors as a lack of viable economic opportunities at home, the continued lower status of women in society, a lack of preventive information, etc., are the contributing factors, but this assumption is not true.

No one wants to be trafficked simply because there is a good reason for it. In fact, if these were the true factors, all Nepalese women or girls would have been in the brothels of India or abroad by now. All sincere Nepalese should fight such propaganda that is instigated by traffickers and their accomplices. In fact, trafficking in women and girls has become one of the fastest growing enterprises in Nepal. The extent of the criminality of the people in this trade has become stronger than the social capacity of public institutions to confront it.

Traffickers in women, much like narcotic traffickers, operate boldly across international borders using the local means of communication and trade. The low risk of prosecution, the enormous profit potential, official corruption and the open international boarder, etc., are the major factors that make Nepal a haven for traffickers. Most of these enterprises are led by Indian dons who have their offices on the other side of the international border and whose illegal enterprises are directed toward Nepal.

Those who are arrested only happen to be the intermediaries working in the actual context. These intermediaries lure victims with personal counselling, false promises of jobs as nannies, cooks, waitresses, sales clerks, etc. Many of them are made to believe that they will be allowed to come back if they do not like the job or want to shift from one job to another. The simplicity of an ordinary Nepalese, that too of a shy young girl or woman, fails to smell the force, deception and coercion in the process and also to notice the inexplicable generosity and persuasion at this early stage of the recruitment process.

Most of the time victims of trafficking often reach international borders with someone they know. Once they cross the international border, they notice though that the people who gave them company until then have left them and that the language, style and attitude of the new caretakers who replaced them are different. By this time, however, the motherland is too far, and the clutches of the criminals are too strong. The women and girls confront their abductors, cry and try to run away, but they find that they are virtual prisoners with no resources, little recourse and no protection against the violations of their person and human rights.

Well-established criminal agents traffic in these women and girls, often capitalising on the simplicity of rural women, rising unemployment and the disintegrating social networks in the countryside of Nepal. This increasingly serious problem is going to have a notorious impact on the country's social fabric very soon.

The hope that the newly established Human Rights Commission would mean a radical new start in instilling respect for human rights has not yet been fulfilled. As in many other social sectors, the government of Nepal does not have a well-formulated plan to address the areas of prevention, victim assistance and protection and enforcement. There is not even governmental machinery that is consulting closely with NGOs, like the present 60-member coalition, which are working in the area and which have programmes to warn potential victims of methods used by traffickers.

Some of these NGO representatives can be helpful in addressing the issue by watching source, transit and destination countries, by calling popular attention to the problem and by developing strategies for combating this egregious human rights violation. There is not even a public awareness campaign at the present time. At the minimum, such a coalition and its continued activities can ensure that young women and girls are educated about this problem so that they will not fall prey to traffickers' tactics of coercion, violence, fraud and deceit. It can also create the pressure of public opinion on law enforcement agencies to prevent women and girls from being trafficked and to ensure that traffickers are punished.

There is also a need to review existing criminal laws and their current use to determine if they are adequate to prevent and deter trafficking in women and girls, to recommend any appropriate legal changes to ensure that trafficking is criminalised and that the consequences of trafficking are significant and, lastly, to review current prosecution efforts against traffickers in order to identify additional intelligence sources, evidentiary needs and resource capabilities.

The only mechanism is the police force, which deals with the problem without trained immigration and law enforcement personnel to enhance their ability to effectively implement border security and to identify traffickers and the victims of trafficking. Frequently the police also complain about the narrow legal bases of judges and public attorneys that prevent enhanced enforcement of laws against trafficking. Some studies have been done by NGOs, and many important issues have already been highlighted by the media, but they need to be analysed again with all parties cooperating and working together.

There are, moreover, some other issues that have hardly been raised by any quarter. There is, for example, a need to examine the current treatment of trafficking, including an effort to determine ways to insure the provision of services for victims and witnesses in settings that secure their safety, precautions for the safe return of victims and witnesses to their places of origin, witness cooperation in criminal trials against traffickers and the consideration of temporary and/or permanent legal status for victims and witnesses of trafficking who lack any legal status.

Fortunately, as yet, Nepal does not have an organised flesh trade within its political frontiers, but prostitution has existed in one form or another in some segments of Nepalese society for a long time. It is only in recent years though that prostitution has spread in places where large projects are being implemented, roadside markets are being developed or wage labourers continue to live in huge numbers for a long time, including prostitution that flourishes in hotels in partnership with the police or local administration in urban areas.

Thamel, for example, has always been known as a place for paedophiles or sex with minors, so much so that pimps around Bir Hospital and the Gongabu bus terminal constantly appear to be busy all afternoon. The law, however, has never focussed on women and children in order to protect them from incidental or commercial sexual abuse. No attempt has been made until today to focus on trafficking and prostitution, analysing the existing laws, penalties, sentencing patterns, reporting requirements, law enforcement capabilities and victim assistance programs.

In fact, the real problems begin, not with the law, but with the capacity and bona fides of politicians and law enforcement agencies. If the political will is there, Nepal can virtually eradicate prostitution and put a stop to trafficking that originates from this country. No matter how much progress the country makes in combating violence against women, reforms unfair inheritance and property rights and strengthens women's access to fair employment and economic opportunities, the existing open border arrangements that were introduced in 1950 must end in order to save the country from the vices that originate on the other side of the border but for which the Nepalese people are made to pay incessantly.

Apart from this, the appropriate response to all allegations of violations of human rights and humanitarian law-wherever in the world they are reported-is that they must be rigorously and independently investigated. Where proven to be well-founded, those responsible have to be brought to justice. The politicians and senior police officers who have joined hands with the traffickers must be brought to justice. There must be no selectivity, no sanctuary, no impunity for those who are guilty of gross human rights violations.