ABOUT NEPAL
Know about Nepal Facts
Nepal
Officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal
Nepal is a country in South Asia. It is located mainly in the Himalaya but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It is the 49th largest country by population and 93rd largest country by area. It is landlocked, and borders China in the north and India in rest of the directions. Nepal has a diverse geography, including fertile, subalpine forested hills, and eight of the world’s ten tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Kathmandu is the capital and the largest city. Nepal is a multiethnic country with Nepali as the official language.
According to the census 2011 the total population of Nepal is 26,494,504 and it reported that the religion with the largest number of followers in Nepal was Hinduism (81.3% of the population), followed by Buddhism (9%); the remaining were Islam (4.4%), Kirant (3.1%), Christianity (1.4%) and Prakriti or nature worship (0.5%).
The country was never colonized and ruled by kings of different dynasty in differ entera. While the democracy was introduced in 1951 AD, but was twice suspended by Nepalese monarchs, in 1960 and 2005. The Nepalese Civil War in the 1990s and early 2000s resulted in the establishment of a Secular Republic in 2008, ending the world’s last Hindu monarchy. The Constitution, adopted in 2015, affirms Nepal as a secular federal parliamentary republic divided into seven provinces.
The country ran through the civil war for nearly 10 years from 1996 to 2006 killing nearly 17,000 people. The country has also seen the major earthquake in 2015 that killed nearly 9,000 people and injured nearly 22,000. After the 6 months of the earthquake it has faced the blockade by India. These incidents hit the country so badly economically resulting increase in problems like Poverty human trafficking, abuses, violence, migration etc.
Trafficking
The country’s human rights commission’s annual report released on August 06, 2019 stated that nearly 1.5 million Nepalis are at risk of various forms of human trafficking. According to the report, aspiring migrant workers, Nepalis working abroad, people in the adult entertainment sector, girls and women from rural areas, missing persons and child laborers are among the groups most vulnerable to trafficking. This makes Nepal a source, as well as a transit and destination for human trafficking.
The report estimated that nearly 35,000 Nepali citizens; 15,000 men, 15,000 women, and 5,000 children, were trafficked last year. Foreign employment and child labor made up nearly 70 percent of the total trafficked population, followed by those from the entertainment sector and those reported missing.
The bleak picture of human trafficking in Nepal comes when a group of 44 Nepali women were repatriated from China on the end of July 2019. They were duped by a recruitment agency in Nepal which had promised a well-paying job in a Chinese garment company. The report states that nearly 1,000 Nepali women and girls are annually rescued from India, where they are taken for sex trade, forced labor, housemaid and taking them further to third countries, by various NGOs. Poor screening at the open border between Nepal and India, which is often used for human trafficking, and lack of formal mechanisms in both countries to address the issue continues to make cross border trafficking major challenge for Nepal.
Although cross border human trafficking incidents remain a challenge for decades, there is not an integrated system that keeps record on actual number of people trafficked.
According to Nepal Police, 2,104 Nepali citizens potentially human trafficking victims were brought back from India-Nepal border in 2018 whereas various NGOs figure shows that over 10,000 have been rescued from various border crossings after screening during the same time frame.
Human trafficking has been a global issue and continues to be a challenge for Nepal where despite of efforts, vulnerability of its citizens towards human trafficking and transportation has not come down significantly.
Nepalis are being trafficked beyond India in recent years with several cases of Nepali women and girls trafficked to China and several African countries through India. China has emerged as a new destination where Nepalis are trafficked to and there are several more countries where Nepali girls and women are trafficked but have failed to recognize these countries.
The report pointed out missing children and adults are also ending up as the victim of human trafficking. According to Nepal Police data, a total of 13,678 went missing in 2018 and only 47 percent of them were found later that year, indicating that most of those who are still missing might have been trafficked.
The report indicates that Sindupalchowk, Dolakha, Dhading, Rasuwa, Kavrepalanchowk, Achham, Nuwakot, and Pyuthan districts are highly vulnerable to human trafficking. Human trafficking incidents continue unabated within the country as well. Many organizations rescued 374 children trafficked from various districts of the country in 2018. The NHRC report on human trafficking 2018 said that nearly 20 percent of workers in hospitality and entertainment sectors were victims of human trafficking whereas other 46 percent were victims of forced labor inside the country.
Despite the rampant cases of human trafficking outside and within the country, filing complaints have remained comparatively low. The Department of Foreign Employment, the government body of Nepal overseeing foreign employment, its governance and related fraud cases, received 2,383 cases registered in fiscal year 2017-18. But most of these cases never reach the police. According to Nepal Police records, 200 to 300 human trafficking cases are registered annually across the country. In 2019, various NGOs had rescued 640 persons, of which 374 were victims of domestic human trafficking and 266 were repatriated from overseas, as victims of international human trafficking rackets. But only 174 cases were reported to the police.
Injustice
The Human Trafficking and Transportation Control Act 2064 criminalized all forms of trafficking and exploitations. The penalties ranged from 10-20 years imprisonment with up to fine of Rupees Two Hundred Thousand.
The cases of trafficking and exploitation are rampant in comparison to the prosecution of the perpetrators. The Nepal Police Women’s Cells (NPWCs) conducted 227 investigations under the HTTCA in 2017. The 227 cases involved 389 alleged traffickers of whom 259 were arrested and 130 remained at large. NPWCs investigated crimes in which women and girls were the primary victims; other police investigative units handled crimes involving male victims. The Central Investigative Bureau (CIB) investigated eight transnational cases between April and December 2017, compared with 20 transnational cases and six internal cases during the same time period in 2016. The government initiated prosecutions in 303 cases during the fiscal year, an increase compared with 218 cases in the previous year, and continued to prosecute 184 cases from the previous reporting period.
Official complicity in trafficking offenses remained a serious problem. NGOs alleged some police and political party leaders were complicit in domestic sex trafficking because of their financial involvement in the adult entertainment sector. Observers alleged some traffickers enjoyed impunity due to personal connections with politicians or by bribing police. Some government officials were reportedly bribed to include false information in genuine Nepali passports or to provide fraudulent documents to prospective labor migrants or foreign employment agents. In December 2017, police arrested a recently elected local official for allegedly exploiting two Nepali girls in sex trafficking in India; while the official was released on bail and awaiting trial for this offense, CIB arrested him for a prior trafficking crime for which he had been convicted in absentia and initiated his six year term of imprisonment.
The Right of Sexually Exploited Children and women to Access Justice In order to secure remedies, sexually exploited children and women must be able to access the justice systems entrusted to uphold and enforce these rights.