Anuradha Koirala: A hand out of horror

Some facts on Girl's trafficking:

(1) Nepal and Bangladesh are the main source countries in South Asia for trafficked children.(Masako Iijima, "S. Asia urged to unite against child prostitution," Reuters, 19 June 1998) 

(2)The trafficking of girls from Nepal into India for the purpose of prostitution is probably the busiest 'slave traffic' of its kind anywhere in the world. (Tim McGirk, "Nepal's Lost Daughters, 'India's soiled goods," Nepal/India: News, 27 January 1997)

 

(3) Every year between 5,000 and 7,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked into the red light districts in Indian cities. Many of the girls are barely 9 or 10 years old. 200,000 to over 250,000 Nepalese women and girls are already in Indian brothels. The girls are sold by poor parents, tricked into fraudulent marriages, or promised employment in towns only to find themselves in Hindustan's brothels. They're locked up for days, starved, beaten, and burned with cigarettes until they learn how to service up to 25 clients a day. Some girls go through 'training' before being initiated into prostitution, which can include constant exposure to pornographic films, tutorials in how to 'please' customers, repeated rapes.(Soma Wadhwa, "For sale childhood," Outlook, 1998) 

(4) Trafficking in Nepalese women and girls is less risky than smuggling narcotics and electronic equipment into India. Traffickers ferry large groups of girls at a time without the hassle of paperwork or threats of police checks. The procurer-pimp-police network makes the process even smoother. Bought for as little as Rs (Nepalese) 1,000, girls have been known to fetch up to Rs 30,000 in later transactions. Police are paid by brothel owners to ignore the situation. Girls may not leave the brothels until they have repaid their debt, at which time they are sick, with HIV and/or tuberculosis, and often have children of their own. The girls are abandoned when they become infected with HIV. 

             

          While there are many organizations, working to abolish child-sex slavery, none of them are as dedicated as Maiti Nepal. Many NGO's are registered with aims and objectives to help the poor but the poor become poorer and ultimately dies in scarcity when those supposedly working for their benefit get fat and fatter. 

         Anuradha Koirala is a social activist, and the founder and director of Maiti Nepal --a non-profit organization in Nepal, dedicated to helping victims of sex trafficking, which has rescued more than 12,000 women and girls from sex slavery. She was named the 2010 CNN Hero of the Year. Working with Nepalese police, Maiti Nepal assists in intercepting young women at border crossings before they are taken into India, by providing surveillance at the border points. Maiti Nepal staff members rescue trafficked girls and women in Indian brothels, repatriate them to Nepal, and rehabilitate them. Maiti provides food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and a hospice. For the young women whose physical health can be restored, Maiti provides vocational education and micro-loans to help them start small businesses. In addition Maiti provides legal and psychological counseling, public awareness campaigns, and it lobbies for tougher trafficking laws in Nepal. 

 

 Anuradha Koirala's work

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