Nepal is a landlocked country geographically divided into three regions of mountains, hills, and Tarai. There are 77 districts in Nepal, but population distribution in all communities is uneven due to various reasons like lack of industries, lack of income-generation opportunities, natural disasters, not having infrastructure, etc. Due to this uneven distribution of land and varied climatic conditions, the migration rate in Dhanusha, Siraha, Jhapa, Mahottari, Morang and almost all the districts near India’s border is high. According to Kathmandu Post, dated 22 August 2021, Nepali migrant workers sent home Rs961.05 billion in the last fiscal year. This migration sometimes leads to many other social issues like the trafficking of children across the border and within Nepal at different tourist places. USA TIP report 2021 stated that human traffickers had exploited domestic and foreign victims in Nepal in the past five years, and traffickers exploit Nepali victims abroad.

This report also explained that Traffickers use Nepal’s open border with India to transport Nepali women and children to India for sex trafficking. The risk of people being trafficked from Nepal is mediated mainly by the porous border with, and economic opportunities in more accessible cities of India through informal networks facilitating movement that leads to exploitation of migrants. One of the prime issues in today’s era is differentiating between migration and trafficking. The concerned officers who are deployed at the border lack awareness regarding this. Because of this problem and confusion between trafficking and migration, many people working on anti-trafficking issues face many problems identifying and differentiating the cases.

This paper explores how Nepal is suffering from the twin issues of migration and trafficking and its impact on Nepalis’ socio-economical and socio-psychological conditions. This paper will also explain the different places in Nepal and India where the rate of migration and trafficking of Nepalis is high. This is a working paper that will devise some suggestions for minimising these issues.