Kalpana Bhattarai
Taking advantage of the compulsion and ignorance of women victimized from family, the business of Women Trafficking is flourishing under the cover of foreign employment.
Kalpana Bhattarai
When Shailesh Rai left home with her husband in 2005, Sabina had a five-month-old son in her arms. Slowly, her parent-in-law stopped caring. After not returning of Shailesh for five years, she moved from Dhankuta to Dharan. As the son began to climb the class, the expenses increased. The responsibility of looking after the parents was also added.
It was during that time that 28-year-old Sabina met with Pasing Rai, a resident of Jhapa. Pasing told Sabina that she would earn up to 40,000 a month in the Gulf country of Kuwait and would support her for it. As planned by Pasing, Durga Gurung and Raj Gurung managed to transport Sabina and Maya Lawati (39) of Panchthar upto Kakadvitta Border till 6th of March 2019
They offered the train to New Delhi, also provided mobile phone with Indian SIM card. Upon arriving at a room in Kishangarh, Delhi, they found eight other women from Nepal; Nita Sunar (34) and Rashmi Tamang (22), Gaumaya Thamahang (43) of Panchthar, Rita Limbu (36) of Jhapa, Geeta Chaudhary (35) of Sunsari, Maya Limbu (41), Goma Bhandari (35) of Kapilvastu and another woman.
These women, who were encased in that room in Kishangarh, had same stories and dreams, though had different castes. All of them were forced to go abroad because of domestic violence and contempt. They knew that getting to Kuwait was not easy through India, but the pain in their house was far more worse.
While living in the same room, these women exchanged their grief. For example, Maya Limbu of Dharan had come to the conclusion of leaving the house not only due to behavior of her husband but also due to behavior of her fellows-in-law. Rashmi Tamang, who was tired of her husband’s beating and excessive drug abuse, wanted to teach her only son well from Foreign earning.
After suffering for five years in Malaysia, Nita Sunar earned over Rs 12 lakh. But on returning home , she found out that her husband had spent all the earned money on alcohol and fun. With the same old dream of building a home and a better future for her four children, Nita came back to the conclusion that she was abroad again.
‘ Transit’ Delhi
Brokers found it impossible to send women to Kuwait from an airport in Delhi. The ‘No Objection Certificate’ (NOC) was mandated by the embassy after it was revealed that the woman was being sent to the Gulf via the airport recently.
The brokers opted another route and took the women from Delhi to Guwahati in Assam. They wanted to fly to Kuwait via the Sumanganj border of Bangladesh. However, the brokers suddenly disappeared when they found it uncomfortable to cross the border.
From there, the helpless women reached Guwahati again and reached the hotel they had previously stayed at. A hotel operator, who understood Nepali language, arranged to send them to Delhi. With no address elsewhere, they went straight to the old room at Kishangarh. And, last 7 May 2019, with the help of the Delhi Women’s Commission, the ‘KIN Nepal’, organization working against trafficking, rescued women and brought them to Nepal via Kapilvastu border.
Violence over violence
The annual report on human trafficking by the National Human Rights Commission of 2006 states that ‘domestic violence’ is the main reason for women going to the Gulf countries for domestic work
According to the report, 80 percent of women who go to foreign employment are ready to go abroad even though they know that brokers are sending them out of the ‘thief way’ for the sake of future of their children as their husbands beat them, neither look after their children nor fulfill their basic needs
Sunita Danuwar, the founder of Shakti group, also said that women expatriate despite the risks due to family violence and child responsibility. “Some of women even do not know the government ban. Either the ban should be loosened and the labor agreement be done or jobs should be created in the country.”
Govinda Thapaliya, Spokesperson for the Nepal Police’s Human Trafficking Investigation Bureau, said that women who suffer from domestic violence are the priority of ‘brokers’. Women need to be vigilant in their quest to get rid of violence and greed for money can lead to greater risk.
‘Settings’ via Shortcuts
The brokers have used ‘shortcuts’ in the last 3 years after Nepalese women were barred from entering the Gulf as a domestic worker. Therefore, it is not uncommon for Nepali women and girls to be taken to India on various excuses, as there is no introduction of passports during transit between Nepal-India. As soon as they cross the border, they are transported to New Delhi via broker.
According to Indra Raj Bhattarai, executive director of KIN Nepal, by placing women somewhere in India, the broker determine in which Gulf countries, when and how to ship the women. Brokers are making Delhi a ‘transit point’.
‘As Indian airport have started seeking NOC, the brokers have begun opting route of Bangladesh, Myanmar and some of them even via Sri Lanka to to Gulf and other countries as religious tourists’, says Former Nepalese Ambassador to India Deepak Kumar Upadhyay.
According to the Department of Foreign Employment, from the period of 1993/1994 till mid-July 2020, 218 thousand 2 hundred and 73 women have left the country by obtaining Labor approval. Most of them are in Gulf countries like are in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar.
There are Nepali women working even in Afghanistan, including Israel. These women are working as care-taker, cleaner, saleswoman, catering, house maid, security guards according to Director General Bhisma Kumar Bhusal.
Reduced complaints
Due to legal complexity, involvement of relatives in trafficking, illiteracy and ignorance, cases of trafficking rarely reach the police. Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau of Nepal Police in the last fiscal year, only 190 trafficking cases were registered. This is a 38 percent decrease over the previous fiscal year.
Bureau spokesperson Thapaliya says, “victims have been reluctant to register the case, as most of the victims involved in the trafficking are relatives and acquaintances. The other victim don’t file a lawsuit because they had gone abroad willingly.”
For example, on February 17 Feb 2019, 146 women were rescued from Maurya and Imphal, places between the border Manipur of India and Myanmar. There wasn’t even a single complaint against any broker.
According to DSP Narahari Regmi of Bureau, a group of brokers were preparing to take 33 men to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan and other countries.
(The names of all the victims have been changed.)
