Nepal is a source country for human trafficking. In the past, women were trafficked mainly to supply the sex trade in India. This has been changing and, as this story shows, poor women from Nepal’s remote areas are trafficked to the Gulf for employment.

-Pramod Acharya : Centre for Investigative Journalism-Nepal

On 16 April 2018, the border police and volunteers of Maiti Nepal, an anti-human trafficking organization, which collaborate to combat trafficking, barred two women from  from crossing over to India at the Gaddachauki border point in western Nepal’s Kanchanpur district finding the women’s behavior “suspicious” during questioning about their travel plans. “We’re going to Delhi for a New Year tour,” they replied – both women had the same explanation. However, neither they had enough cash with them, nor did they seem to be in a vacation mood. Sub-inspector Dikardev Pant, in charge of the Area Police Office at Gaddachauki, also found their body language “suspicious”. Reason: They often exchanged glances and when asked questions, their replies lacked coherence.

Upon interrogating them further, the truth eventually emerged. The two women, KaushilaTamang*, 35, and RamilaTamang*, 32, who hailed from Thangpaldhap and Bhotenamlang respectively in Sindhupalchok, a remote hilly district of Nepal, were in fact heading towards Kuwait, and New Delhi was their transit point. They were escorted by family members to the Indian capital: Kaushila by her husband and Ramila by her brother-in-law.

Some of the accused:1. SagarShrish (Baglung) 2. Tika Prasad Timsina (Jhapa) 3. Gyaljen Sherpa (Sindhupalchok) 4. Apsara Acharya (Kailali) 5. SukamayaTamang (Sindhupalchok) 6. YoChhiringNekor Lama (Rasuwa) 7. LawangTamang (Sindhupalchok) 8. Krishna Bahadur Gurung (Syangja) 9. Khadga Bahadur Bishwakarma (Jhapa), 10. Dillishwar Limbu (Tehrathum), 11. Mina Lama (Sindhupalchok), 12. Jhayandra Kumar Adhikari (Morang).] Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Police Crime Division (MPCD), Nepal.

During the course conversation with us, they admitted that they had a clandestine plan to travel to Kuwait. As the Nepal government bans Nepali women from going to Kuwait to work as domestic workers, they thought they had found an illegal way to get there: to be trafficked into Kuwait from New Delhi. However, they failed to cross the border. While in police custody, one of the men, Ramila’sbrother-in-law, confessed that he had planned to accompany his sister-in-law to Delhi for her flight to Kuwait.

According to the Nepal border police, human traffickers ‘sell’ Nepali women to countries in the Persian Gulf via India. Such women cannot enter India if the border police and volunteers working against human trafficking stop them at the border. Unfortunately, there have been no records of those who cross or have crossed the border by evading arrest.

According to the Nepal Ministry of Labour and Foreign Employment, the Department of Foreign Employment (DOFE) issued 786,564 permits to Nepalese citizens for foreign employment to over one hundred destination countriesin 2015/16 and 2016/17.

The report, Labour Migration for Employment – A Status Report for Nepal: 2015/2016-2016/2017, shows large-scale labour migration from Nepal with most of them going to the countries which are members of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Malaysia. According to the report, the destination of 85 percent of thelabour migration was to GCC countries and Malaysiaduring 2008/09 and 2014/15.  

The report says: “…in the past nine fiscal years… 355,4683 permits were issued…, 29.88 percent were for Malaysia, followed by Qatar (21.57 percent), Saudi Arabia (20.37), UAE (10.62 percent), Kuwait (2.54), Republic of Korea (1.32 percent), Bahrain (0.86 percent) and Oman (0.63 percent).”  

These figures document those who left the country from Nepal’s international airport. But there is no documentation about those who secretly crossed the Indo-Nepal border and eventually reached the Gulf by other means.

Compelled to leave

Some women are prepared to take the risk despite being aware of the fact of being trafficked. There are instances of family members and neighbours who have cooperated and helped the traffickers.

When detained by the police, these women are reluctant to reveal details such as their destination, the reason to leave, those involved in the dealings, and other arrangements with the trafficking agents. 

“Victims themselves don’t want to speak the truth,” said DillirajBista, Superintendent of Police (SP) in Kanchanpur. “We screen cases but investigation gets complicated when they hesitate to reveal the truth.”

However, RamilaTamang admitted to us that her brother-in-law was involved, and suggested family involvement was not unusual.  “I showed my willingness when my brother-in-law promised to send me abroad,” she revealed.

Other women risking their lives to go to the Gulf illegally say they have no choice. The story of Elisha Tamang*, 22, from Orang village in Dolakha district, is harrowing. She was taken to Oman about a year ago. The agents kept her in Oman for a few weeks before sending her to Kuwait where they could get a better price for her. She was, in fact, sold there. In a statement given to the Metropolitan Police Crime Division, Kathmandu, she said she was prepared to work for an employer in the Persian Gulf because of her poverty.

She lived in a rural village and was jobless. She had left school after the ninth grade as her family could not afford her education. Realizing her family’s financial condition, she left home and went to Kathmandu, and started working in a garment shop. Since she was paid a minimal salary, she and her husband decided that the latter would go abroad to work. However, when he failed the medical test, she decided that she would go instead. However, she too could not make it due to her lack of skills. She, therefore, decided to go abroad illegally – by crossing the border and being sold.

In her statement to the police, Elisha Tamang said, “I didn’t have a single rupee to feed my baby and my husband was sick. In this situation, there was no option left for me but to go abroad.” Tamang’s husband had taken her to New Delhi via the Bhairahawa border and left her with human traffickers posing as foreign employment agents.

Border surveillance: The office of Maiti Nepal’s Border Surveillance Team. The NGO and the Nepal border police work together, questioning India-bound travelers trying to identify trafficking. Photo: Pramod Acharya.

During her seven months in Kuwait she worked for three Kuwaiti families as a housemaid. Members of all three families exploited her physically and mentally, she said. In the first house, she worked for up to 20 hours daily and the owner of the house tried to have sexual relationship with her without her consent. She said, “The owner forcefully exploited me physically every day. He used to beat me. He often appeared aggressive and I was aware of his intention to molest me.” As she refused to have sexual intercourse with the owner, he returned her to the agents he bought her from. The agents then sold her to another family where Elisha faced similar issues. She was again returned and sent to a third home. She said the third home owner was a Kuwaiti police officer.  

In her statement, Elisha Tamang said: “I knew that women were being sold in the Gulf countries. I also knew that I was going to the Gulf illegally, but I was not sure to which country. As I knew that I was going to the Gulf illegally, I crossed the Indo-Nepal border secretly. Then I reached Oman via India. After a few weeks, I reached Kuwait. After I started being exploited in Kuwait, one day I called my husband and told him of my real situation. At that time I wanted to return home. But my passport had been confiscated by the house owner. Then I heard that my husband had called Rescue Nepal, an anti-human trafficking NGO. People from Rescue Nepal coordinated with the Nepal police. The police coordinated with the Nepali embassy in Kuwait and also with Interpol Kuwait. Finally, I was rescued.”

The agents working for Elisha Tamang’s traffickers were arrested after the police issued a Red Notice, an international arrest warrant issued by Interpol. Mina Lama and Shyam Kumar Lama, the couple who sold Elisha Tamang in Kuwait, were extradited from Kuwait and arrived Nepal on 20 May, 2018 and 24 May 2018, respectively.

KaushilaTamang, who was detained at the Indo-Nepal border while entering India, spoke about why she was prepared to go to Kuwait illegally. She said it was her poverty that she decided to take the risk. “Would I take this trouble if I earned enough money in my own country for survival? Why would I choose to go to Kuwait with the help of agents if I had better opportunities here?” she queried.

According to Nepal’s Metropolitan Police Crime Division, women are being sold into the Gulf countries particularly from areas heavily damaged by the 2015 earthquakes. Sindhupalchowk was one of the districts worst hit by the April 2015 quake which killed almost 9,000 people and injured about 22,000. In Sindhupalchowk district alone, 3,573 people died and 86,971 houses were completely destroyed. To date, only about half the houses have been reconstructed.

AashmanTamang, Chief District Officer of Sindhupalchowk, says the delayed reconstruction is down to the slow pace of work of the National Reconstruction Authority (NRA). “We are doing our job efficiently, but the main party responsible for reconstruction is not serious in their task. They only focus on physical reconstruction. Without considering the social and financial condition of people during the reconstruction phase, we cannot stop human trafficking.”

Women from this district are being trafficked more than anywhere else in Nepal. “People here have remained poor for long. They are illiterate too,” Deputy Inspector of District Police, Sindhupalchowk,Khyali Singh said. “Left in a limbo after their houses were destroyed, women from here are going to the Gulf countries to earn some money,” he added. The women of other earthquake-affected districts such as Dhading and Nuwakot have also become victims of trafficking, particularly the poor and illiterate women from the remote areas that are rife with poverty and unemployment.

Analysing the socio-economic causes of human trafficking, SunitaDanuwar, the Executive Director of Shakti Samuha Nepal, an organization formed by the female survivors of trafficking in India and working against these practices, takes the same view as Deputy Inspector Singh: women are being sold by the so-called agents of foreign employment agencies because they lack money, are illiterate and unaware of what lies in store for them. Danuwar herself is a victim of trafficking and was rescued from India years before. “Exploiting their [the women’s] weaknesses, human traffickers are running their racket without hindrance,” she said.

RamilaTamang’s situation is a case in point: she was prepared to take an illegal route to find work and money to support her two children. Her husband was also prepared to see his wife leave this way.  “I wanted to go in the hope of earning some money,” said Ramila. “My husband also said I could leave.”

Family members are taken into confidence and cooperate; they hope the income made abroad will ensure a good future for the whole family. People deprived of basic services such as food, health and education are vulnerable and thus will take huge risks to go abroad in the hope of better earnings.

This, too, was the reason that KaushilaTamang’s husband agreed that agents could take her to Delhi for the flight to Kuwait. “Had he been able to earn money at home, to educate our children, my husband would not have taken me on a journey to Kuwait,” she said, her voice wobbly. The couple have three daughters under ten years old, but can barely feed them, let alone send them to school.

KaushilaTamang also said that her father and mother are in bad health and at any time she might have to find money for their treatment – going abroad to work was the only way out, she thought. “I don’t know whether you believe me or not, but going to the Gulf via an illegal path was not my wish, I was forced to do it because of the situation.”

An Open Border

Nepal and India share a 1,690 kilometre-long border with twenty two-ways crossings. When crossing the border by land, no documents are required. Traffickers exploit this fact. So police face difficulty to identify or ascertain the intention of the women crossing the border.

Trafficking Racket: Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) Chief Swati Maliwal and the Nepali women who were rescued from Hotel Hriday Inn at Paharganj, the hotspot of human trafficking in India, in last week of August, 2018. DCW rescued 39 Nepali women who were being trafficked to gulf countries. Photo: Amit Mishra/Twitter

Kanchanpur, a border district of Nepal, is only 337 kilometres from India’s capital and so has become a major supply point of women for trafficking, according to DillirajBista, the district Superintendent of Police.

Human traffickers and their agents come up with numerous ways to deceive the police while taking women from remote parts of the country across the border. They often instruct women to say that they are on a tour or going to a job. Upon inquiry by the police, these women have a set of regular answers. Bista said, “It’s hard to say whether these women are in fact headed for employment in India.” Afterall, it is common for Nepalis to travel to India for a visit or employment. But due to lack of official documentation or evidence, it’s difficult to say how many of them are working or travelling in India. However, there are some estimates. In 2009, the World Bank estimated that there were 867,000 Nepalis working in India. According to the 2001 census, approximately 600,000 were working in India.

Indian police officials blame the border force of the Nepal Police for the unchecked trafficking of women from Nepal. An official working at one of the anti-human trafficking units of the Indian Police, who insisted anonymity, said: “This can be stopped if Nepal’s police properly scrutinize the cases. But Nepal police and non-government organisations there do not take it seriously.”

There are some cases when Indian police arrest the traffickers and rescue the Nepalese girls. Police of both countries claim they sometimes collaborate. At the meantime, they reinforce on scaling up collaborated efforts.

Racketeers have other ways of trafficking women into India. Some say they are taking women across the border in the pretext of shopping. Having crossed the border on foot, they take a bus to New Delhi. Some they take tangas(horse-pulled chariot) and rickshaws to cross the border, saying they are sightseeing. “Since we screen bus travelers, they seem to be employing other techniques,” said Bista. “There are also those who cross on bicycles or via suspension bridges.”

In fact, there are numerous ways that traffickers take women and children across the border. Just over a year ago, a 16-year-old from Sindhupalchowk was rescued by Maiti Nepal at the border as she was on her way to India dressed as a Buddhist nun. The traffickers told her to say that she was going to Dharmashala in India to study at a Buddhist school. Maheshwari Bhatta, the Kanchanpurprogramme coordinator for Maiti Nepal, said that the girl appeared to be innocent and did not know where she was being taken to.  

Traffickers know women can get away by saying they were off to India for work or to meet relatives since many Nepalis work in India.  The agents advise women to say as little as possible to the police and understandably the women take this advice. Some hoping to go to the Gulf countries pretend to be sick in order to enter India. Elisha Tamang, a 22-year-old girl from Orang-7 in Dolakha who returned home having reached Kuwait via India through the Bhairahawa border, said: “The broker had taught me to say that I needed treatment for my illness. This really worked to get across.”

Since the authorities do not require a passport for passage into India, traffickers keep the women’s passports and return them in New Delhi after completing the visa process. In Delhi, they decide which country the women would be sent to, how and when. Two women caught at the Indo-Nepal border said: “We don’t know where our passports are. We’ve already given it to them [traffickers].”

Traffickers keep women in New Delhi before sending them to the Gulf. Mina Pande, in charge of the Champawat-based anti-trafficking unit of the Indian police, said: “Women seem to be kept in Pahargunj, a settlement in New Delhi, for a few days before being sent to the Gulf after arranging the visa.” She added that women are supplied mainly from the beauty parlours and massage centres run by Nepalis in Delhi. According to her, human traffickers and their agents run beauty parlours in India to give the impression that they are entrepreneurs rather than traffickers. When, the police raid these areas, the traffickers say they are merely into businesses.

It’s also the case that a Nepali can board a flight to India from Nepal’s international airport in Kathmandu or use India’s airports without a passport, although they do need identification.  

A nightmare

Most of the women who reach the Gulf this way end up as ‘housemaids’ and are subjected to exploitation. Nirmala Joshi* from Jhapa, was 14years old when she worked in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, returning to Nepal a year ago. “They did not pay me the promised salary. Physical assaults and torture were usual ordeals.” While the agents had said she would get around 180 KD ($594) per month, she says she was not given even half of that. Nirmala spoke of her nightmare: “In Kuwait, my employer took away my passport. Without a passport and wandering around the city, the police approached me. I was jailed and later deported.”

In the past, human traffickers faced a big risk of getting caught with the women on the Nepal-India border. They have now stopped escorting the women to Delhi to sell them. Trafficking ring leaders stay in Delhi and make arrangements for safe transit of Nepali women to the Indian capital. “Traffickers have become cleverer,” said Maheshwari Bhatta, the Kanchanpurprogramme coordinator for Maiti Nepal. “They don’t operate in the open. They get family members or relatives of the women to take them to Delhi.”

They also tell the girls to get citizenship documents and passports with false information about their age, if necessary. A girl from Sindhupalchowk said, “I’m only fourteen but I got my citizenship and passport as a 19-year-old so I could go abroad.” She said that her neighbours had given this idea to her parents.

Cases are not filed

According to Nepal Police, from July 2017 to May 2018, a total of 233 cases of human trafficking were filed across Nepal. The number of cases filed in the five preceding fiscal years was 227, 212, 181, 186 and 144, respectively. But the police say the state of human trafficking is even worse than indicated by these figures. In their view, the real figures are rising every year. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) supports this claim. According to the NHRC, the estimated number of people trafficked was 23,200 in 2015/16. Of these, 6,100 were sold, 13,600 escaped trafficking and 3,900 are presumed to be out of contact. Up to 98 per cent of those targeted are women. Quite clearly then, the number of registered cases is very low. And there are no specific data available about those trafficked into Gulf.

The National Human Rights Association’s report titled Trafficking in Person says: “It is difficult to estimate the undocumented Migrant Workers. Identification of such Migrant Workers especially important as many of Women Migrant Workers are reported to have destined to Gulf region via India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. More than 200,000 females are said to be in Gulf region for domestic work. Globally, this region accounts for the highest proportion of domestic workers (62%) and in case of women [domestic workers], it is 82 percent (ILO, 2015). This suggests that female migration to Gulf region is tantamount to female migration for domestic work.”

According to the Nepali embassy in Kuwait, 544 domestic servants returned to Nepal as a result of having a range of difficultiesin 2017. An official at the embassy, Gyanendra Sharma, said by email that common problems of domestic workers in Kuwait are thrashings, non-payment of salary or delayed salary payment, long working hours, poor accommodation, lack of facilities to communicate with family, and several other problems. In the first five months of 2018, two hundred domestic workers returned to Nepal as a result of such issues.

SSP Chhetri, Information Officer of Nepal Police, said, “Not all the victims file cases. If everyone did, the scary picture of trafficking would come out.” According to him, victims hesitate to do so because often the accused have family links with the victims. “Victims are not ready to register charges against the people known to them,” said Chhetri. “Even those who try to file complaints are deterred with promises from the traffickers.” Sometimes the victims are offered financial favours on the condition they keep quiet. 

There are other reasons why so few victims inform the authorities. “Since the victims had consented to leave, they don’t register charges against the perpetrators,” said Chhetri. Moreover, most women exploited by the traffickers are uneducated and are unaware of their legal rights. “Trafficked women lack awareness. They are not familiar with the court procedure,” Chhetri said, adding that justice is even more remote for women who remain abroad.

Sometimes, suspects are released after being arrested in the absence of evidence. And since traffickers are involved in complex networks and cross-border deals, detaining them poses additional challenges. These legal challenges have emboldened the criminals. The police also hesitate to get involved on their own admission. “Victims don’t open up to us. When they don’t want to reveal facts, we don’t press them either,” a police officer said on condition of anonymity. “The racket is big. Why should we alone take risks when victims don’t want [to help]?”

According to Nepal’s Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act-2007, legal action can only begin when the statement of the victim of trafficking is certified by the district court. Sometimes victims give different statements to the police and later to the court. As a result, the police’s work has been limited to detaining women who try to cross over to India without clear reason and persons accompanying them.  Police have arrested some individuals involved in human trafficking but the kingpins of the crime have yet to be brought to justice.

Unclear laws

Nepal’s existing laws lack clarity over how to address the issue of human trafficking under the veil of foreign employment opportunities. Neither the Foreign Employment Act nor the Anti-trafficking Act addresses this new form of trafficking. The Foreign Employment Act is silent on human trafficking, while the Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act does not recognize human trafficking that purportedly is for legitimate foreign employment. This creates confusion as to which law is relevant, and what action needs to be taken in these cases, so allowing the perpetrators to operate more easily. Information Officer of the Nepal Police, SSP Shailesh Thapa Chhetri said that the confusion between legislation that applies to cases of trafficking and that which applies to cases of trafficking for foreign employment, is advantageous to the criminals.

SunitaDanuwar, executive director of Shakti Samuha, said ordinary people and policy makers alike are confused. “A law has to be drafted to tell trafficking from fraud in the name of employment,” said Danuwar.

The Anti-Trafficking Act defines human trafficking as selling people for sexual exploitation and does not cover trafficking for foreign employment. The Foreign Employment Act says that selling people abroad under the cover of employment amounts to “fraud by individuals or recruitment agencies”.  Yet, when people are sold into foreign jobs, the traffickers and their agents face less serious penalties under the Foreign Employment Law than they would get under the Anti-Trafficking Act. Trafficking charges can result in imprisonment for twenty years; a sentence for foreign employment fraud ranges from three to seven years.

Information Officer at the Department of Foreign Employment Mohan Adhikari said they have initiated the process to amend the Foreign Employment Act. Under-secretary at the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare Roshani Devi Karki said preparations were being made to amend the Anti-trafficking Act to clarify its ambiguities. However, the reform process was announced in 2016 and so far there have been no concrete outcomes. While the human traffickers are benefiting from the legal loopholes and selling the girls all over the Gulf, a former victim of trafficking, Nirmala Joshi, says, “The life of Nepalese housemaids in Kuwait is like a hell, but even more hellish is our poverty, which pushes us to follow the path to the Gulf.”

*As the victims we interviewed requested that we not publish their names as it could put them in danger, we have changed their names in the story. Some information from the police officers and victims was given under the condition of anonymity as well.  We obtained information relating to the cases of victims on condition of not publishing the full account and details so they are quoted in part only.  DillirajBista, who was Superintendent of Police in Kanchanpur District has now been suspended over the mishandling of a rape case.