The networks of human traffickers in Nepal have been doing their businesses in the facade of foreign employment with their yearly turnover pegged at a staggering figure of Rs 40 billion.

Chief Secretary Lila Mani Poudel today said at a programme that trafficking of women of late has grown exponentially and stressed that the regulating agencies must heed to this as a wake-up call and swing into action to rein in such inhuman businesses.

“Foreign employment is no more an outsourcing business now; it has become a tool to make quick buck by trafficking people, especially women,” said Poudel. “Human traffickers have found the Gulf countries as the most lucrative destinations, and they are operating their business via India by involving Nepali agents. Our current challenge is to stop these networks that have a yearly turnover of about Rs 40 billion.” Poudel added that the agent-based model of migration is playing a grater role in human trafficking as such unscrupulous networks are being run in the facade of foreign employment. 

Records show that on an average 30-40 Nepali women leave for the Gulf via India every day through the so-called agents. According to Poudel, most of them fall prey to these agents, either knowingly or unknowingly. 

The government started registering outbound women migrant workers since 2007/08 and its record indicates that around 58,000 of them have reached the Gulf countries so far. But a UN Women estimate in 2011 suggested that more than 244,000 women migrant workers were in foreign jobs — a clear indication that most of them had reached the foreign lands through illegal channels. 

Reports from Human Rights Watch and US State Department too had pointed that human trafficking in Nepal in the name of foreign employment was growing as an industry. A US State Department report had suggested that most of women migrant workers from Nepal were landing in brothels in the Gulf countries — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain. The HRW also had pointed to the fact that most of the women migrant workers from Nepal were working as domestic help in the Gulf and that they were highly likely to be subjected to sexual exploitations. A UN Women report had proved the claim of sexual exploitations with 88 cases of unwanted pregnancy, 82 cases of suicide and incidents of 25 women returning home with children — all in the last 18 months. Around 18,000 women reach the Gulf countries through illegal routes every year, and they are facilitated by unauthorised agents or human traffickers. 

The Amnesty International has said that migration of Nepali workers in 2011 was largely based on false promises made by the agents. 

“Human traffickers try to tap women,” said Purna Chandra Bhattarai, Director General, the Department of Foreign Employment. “We can say by our experience that when it is an undocumented migration via India, it is case of trafficking.” Bhattarai called for treating such cases under human trafficking category and punishing the perpetrators as per anti-trafficking law. 

Though the government in August banned women below 30 years of age from working as domestic maids in the Gulf, it has not stopped the young women from travelling to the Gulf nations. “Agents have been continuously targeting women, the government needs to act now,” said Saru Joshi of the UN Women.

Telling numbers

• Govt records show 58,000 women migrant workers are in foreign lands

• UN Women estimates 244,000 women migrant workers were in foreign jobs in 2011

• Every day 30-40 women migrant workers leave for the Gulf via India

• Every year 18,000 women migrant workers reach the Gulf through illegal channels

Published on: 13 January 2013 | The Himalayan Times