Sex trafficking: ‘A heinous crime that is a shame to humanity’

The definition of Maiti is something akin to family but the charity of the same name offers more than love and companionship to victims of sex trafficking.

Maiti Nepal takes care of every aspect of a victim’s recovery, from interception, rehabilitation, conviction of the trafficker, lobbying government for stricter laws, training, repatriation, employment, medical care, child care and day-to-day expenses…

The charity is so involved with the girls, that if they die from their injuries or from diseases contracted, Maiti will even arrange and pay for the cremation. 

To date Maiti Nepal has saved some 16,000 girls from sex trafficking.

Social activist, founder and director of Maiti Nepal, Anuradah Koirala, is a symbolic mother to the hundreds of girls who benefit from the charity every year. The former English teacher was voted CNN Hero of the Year in 2010 for her work with women and children.

Bermuda has been privileged to have her here to talk about the work she and the charity does in Nepal and on the borders of India and China where girls are trafficked from as young as five-years-old. She held a public talk last night and is due to speak privately to others today. 

Since 1995, Maiti Nepal has helped to convict no fewer than 868 sex traffickers, whereas last year, the government of Nepal only managed to convict one. 

Local charity consultant John Singleton was recently in Nepal, along with an anonymous foundation, helping to patrol just one of the borders where girls are trafficked through. His work continues in Nepal but he was so taken by the work that Maiti Nepal did that he wanted to help them raise awareness by bringing Koirala to the island to speak. It is hoped that some well needed funds and support in kind can be raised for what Koirala describes as “this heinous crime that is a shame to humanity.” Bermuda is invited to help support the charity which it can do through local charity the Chewstick Foundation.

Fed up with the injustices against sex trafficked women which had gone unspoken in Nepal, Koirala decided she had to do something about it. 

Speaking with the Bermuda Sun, she said: “This issue of trafficking was happening in the 1830s but nobody spoke about it, they knew about it but the political situation was such that nothing was done. 

Spreading the message

“When democracy was established in Nepal in 1990 people started speaking about it.”

Never one to do things by halves, Koirala helped to gather a team of 200 people to spread the message around Nepal and neigbouring countries. She flanked herself with journalists, lawyers, doctors and even recovered sex trafficked girls, to inform society of the problem and some of the solutions. “It was a random programme so you don’t know who is in the audience. They may be a trafficker they maybe a girl who will be trafficked or her parents. We had messages for all of them. I wanted the journalists not to write hypothetically – but to see first-hand. The lawyers I took because I wanted them to tell the people what the laws actually said – 20 years in prison for traffickers. I took the police to tell them how they should come and report to the police and not to be scared. The doctors came to talk about the diseases. We had messages for everyone.”

There are structural problems in Nepal that still make it difficult to control the problem. Gender disparity within the police system and society at large, lack of education and lack of jobs all contribute to the situation. Much work is needed to be done but Maiti Nepal is making in roads.  

“The whole vicious circle of trafficking is covered by us. Our law says 20 years we are lobbying the government for not only 20 years (conviction) but life and confiscation of the property. We are in the process of doing that.

“Children the age 11 to 13 are the biggest victims of trafficking they need to go to school. We are lobbying for free compulsory education and finable education – fining parents half a dollar a day their child didn’t go to school. Government has to be very honest and give everything free – they are supported by the World Bank for free education for girls – they shouldn’t put that in their pocket.”

Maiti also offers recovered girls the opportunity to work on the numerous borders to help intercept traffickers. “It used to be police immigration and customs but now my girls are standing there together with the police. Nobody in the whole world has this sample. The girls — because they are better than the police or you or me they have been through it they know what the trafficker looks like. After working there they are economically empowered.” 

If you would like to support Maiti Nepal in its important work you can do so through www.friendsofmaitinepal.org or through local charity the Chewstick Foundation. For more information about the Maiti visit www.maitinepal.org