mikeldunham

Latest Human Rights Report on Nepal: U.S. State Department

 

March 17, 2010

 

 

Last week, the U.S. State Department released its 2009 Human Rights Report on Nepal. Below are some of the highlights. A link to the full document is provided at the end of the summary.

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The government's respect for human rights improved slightly as all parties joined the government. Members of the security forces, the Maoist militias, the Maoist-affiliated Young Communist League (YCL), and members of other small, often ethnically based armed groups committed human rights abuses. Members of the Nepal Army (NA) were confined to their barracks in accordance with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2006. Members of the Nepal Police (NP) and Armed Police Force (APF) occasionally used excessive and lethal force in response to continued demonstrations throughout the country. Maoist militias engaged in arbitrary and unlawful use of lethal force and abduction. Violence, extortion, and intimidation continued throughout the year. Numerous armed groups, largely in the Terai region in the lowland area near the Indian border, attacked civilians, government officials, members of particular ethnic groups, each other, or Maoist militias. Impunity for human rights violators, threats against the media, arbitrary arrest, and lengthy pretrial detention were serious problems. The government compromised the independence of the judiciary by exerting political pressure on the judicial process, and society continued to discriminate against persons of lower castes and persons with disabilities. Violence against women and trafficking in persons, mainly women and girls, continued.

 

 

DISAPPERANCE

 

The fate of many of those who disappeared during the 10-year Maoist insurgency (1996-2006) remained unknown. According to NHRC estimates, there were 835 unresolved cases of disappearances at year's end. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimated the number of disappeared at more than 1,365. A significant number of the disappeared were young, married men who were the primary income earners for their families. At year's end the government had not prosecuted any government officials or Maoists for involvement in disappearances or released any information about the whereabouts of the 616 persons the NHRC identified as disappeared with state involvement.

 

 

TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT

Although the 2007 interim constitution prohibits torture, the law does not clearly criminalize torture, and no one has been prosecuted for torture. During the year, Advocacy Forum-Nepal (AF) documented 98 cases of torture by nonstate actors. The AF attributed responsibility for 49 cases to the Maoists and the YCL; 34 cases to Madhesi armed groups, including the Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha (JTMM); six cases to the Tharu Mukti Morcha; and nine cases to unidentified armed groups in the Terai. The government failed to conduct thorough and independent investigations of reports of security force or Maoist/YCL brutality and generally did not take significant disciplinary action against those involved.

 

 

PRISON AND DETENTION CENTER CONDITIONS

 

Prison conditions were extremely poor and did not meet international standards. According to the director general of the Department of Prisons, 9,260 prisoners--8,599 men and 661 women--remained in custody through December 31.

 

 

ROLE OF THE POLICE AND SECURITY APPARATUS

 

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) called on the NP and the APF to enforce law and order across the country. Police did not respond to most incidents of violence, particularly events involving Maoists and armed groups in the Terai. There were multiple incidents in which police detained Maoist and YCL cadres for illegal acts, but political leadership within the Home Ministry freed the detainees or other political leaders intervened.

 

 

DENIAL OF FAIR PUBLIC TRIAL

 

The law provides for an independent judiciary, but courts remained vulnerable to political pressure, bribery, and intimidation. Delays in the administration of justice were a severe problem. As of December 31, the Supreme Court reported a backlog of 10,306 cases. There was no indication that this backlog lessened during the year.

 

 

PROPERTY RESTITUTION

 

The Maoists returned some previously seized property as the CPA requires but kept other illegally seized lands and properties in their possession; they also seized additional properties. For example, on September 1, more than 1,000 activists of Tamu Rastriya Mukti Morcha, an organization affiliated with the UCPN-M, seized land belonging to Bharat Gurung in Srinathkot.

 

 

USE OF EXCESSIVE FORCE AND OTHER ABUSES IN INTERNAL CONFLICTS

There was significant internal conflict in the Terai. Numerous armed groups, many ethnically based, clashed with each other and with the local population. Police had a limited mandate and were unable fully to promote law and order. Members of the Maoists, the Maoist-affiliated YCL, and other ethnically based splinter groups in the Terai frequently committed acts of violence, extortion, and intimidation throughout the year.

 

 

KILLINGS

 

INSEC reported that during the year armed groups killed 229 civilians.

 

 

OTHER CONFLICT-RELATED ABUSES

 

Maoists and Maoist-affiliated organizations continued to commit abuses during the year in contravention of the CPA. Maoists regularly extorted money from businesses, workers, private citizens, and NGOs. When individuals or companies refused or were unable to pay, Maoist recrimination was violent or implied the threat of violence.

 

Maoists attacked political opponents on several occasions.

 

 

FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND PRESS

 

The interim constitution protects media licenses from revocation based on what they print or broadcast. The government owned two television stations, Nepal TV and Nepal TV Metro, and controlled one radio station that broadcast both AM and FM signals. Radio remained the primary source of information, with more than 150 independent radio stations reaching more than 90 percent of the population.

 

The independent media were active and expressed a wide variety of views. Hundreds of independent vernacular and English-language newspapers were available, representing various political viewpoints.

 

Foreign publications were widely available, and none were banned or censored during the year. Foreign print media was present, and reporting on the country was allowed without restrictions.

 

Armed groups and political parties deliberately targeted media workers and journalists throughout the country. For example, printing presses and journalists were attacked by Maoists and their youth wing and by other smaller armed groups. The government promised action against those targeting journalists, although there were few instances where the government punished perpetrators. Impunity encouraged others to resort to threats and violence to silence journalists. The Maoists also influenced media outlets through their powerful trade unions. In the Terai and the eastern hills, armed groups coerced journalists, resulting in self-censorship and fear of personal safety. Armed groups and political parties burned newspapers that they found objectionable.

 

 

INTERNET FREEDOM

 

There were no government restrictions on access to the Internet or reports that the government monitored e-mail or Internet chat rooms. Individuals and groups could engage in the peaceful expression of views via the Internet, including by e-mail. Approximately 2 percent of the population used the Internet.

 

 

INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS (IDPS)

 

Civil society and international organizations estimated there were between 50,000 and 70,000 IDPs in the country. According to UN agencies and international NGOs, the main obstacles preventing most IDPs from returning to their homes continued to be fear of Maoist reprisal, local Maoist commanders' refusal to allow IDPs to return to their homes, and conflict with those occupying the houses and lands of IDPs. Unrest in the Terai region led to more displacement. According to Caritas, the government made little effort to aid or monitor the movement of post-conflict IDPs.

 

 

PROTECTION OF REFUGEES

 

Between 1990 and 2008, the number of Tibetans transiting the country to find asylum in India ranged from 2,000 to 3,000 per year. Following 2008 protests and subsequent riots in the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas of China, the People's Republic of China heightened security along its border. After March 2008 the number of Tibetans transiting the country dropped significantly, falling to fewer than 700 per year. There continued to be reports of harassment by Chinese border guards within Nepal's borders, including a credible report by an international observer of a joint patrol by Chinese and Nepali border officials more than 30 miles inside Nepal. There were also numerous instances of APF officers assisting and protecting Tibetan refugees found in the border region. There were no confirmed reports of refoulement, but there were unconfirmed allegations of acquiescence to the return of Tibetans found on the border.

 

Bribery was required to obtain access to higher education, business ownership, licenses, and legal transactions, including documentation of births, marriages, and deaths.

 

 

OFFICIAL CORRUPTION AND GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY

 

The law provides criminal penalties for official corruption; however, the government did not implement the law effectively. The Commission for the Investigation of the Abuse of Authority (CIAA), mandated to investigate official acts of corruption, claimed a 75 percent success rate concerning corruption cases it filed, but some cases involving politicians were not filed or were defeated in court. Most civil society organizations believed the CIAA was not an effective commission.

 

Corruption and impunity remained problems within the NP. According to international observers, there was a severe shortage of senior-level officers. At the district level, this shortage resulted in untrained constables making policies and decisions outside of their authority and without supervision from officers, creating space for bribery, corruption, misinterpretation, and abuse of authority.

 

 

DISCRIMINATION, SOCIETAL ABUSES, AND TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS

 

The law specifies that the government shall not discriminate against citizens on grounds of race, sex, caste, or ideology; however, a rigid caste system continued to operate throughout the country in many areas of religious, professional, and daily life. Societal discrimination against lower castes, women, and persons with disabilities remained common, especially in rural areas.

 

Domestic violence against women remained a serious problem that received limited public attention. There was a general unwillingness among police, politicians, citizens, and government authorities to recognize violence against women as a problem.

 

The dowry tradition was strong in the Terai districts bordering India, and there were sporadic incidences of bride killing over dowry disputes. More often, husbands or in-laws seeking additional dowry physically abused wives or forced women to leave so the men could remarry.

 

Traditional beliefs about witchcraft negatively affected elderly rural women and widows.

 

An estimated 7,500 women were forced into commercial sexual exploitation in other countries and increasingly within the country. Forced prostitution is illegal, but there are no laws banning prostitution by choice.

 

44% of mothers received prenatal care from a doctor, nurse, or midwife. Most births (81%) were at home, and 67% of mothers received no postnatal care.

 

 

CHILDREN

 

According to the interim constitution, citizenship is derived solely from a Nepali father.

According to a 2008 report by the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, 35 percent of births were registered.

 

Human rights groups reported that girls attended secondary schools at a rate half that of boys.

 

Violence against children rarely was prosecuted, and commercial sexual exploitation of young girls remained a serious problem.

 

There are no laws against discrimination against female children, and in practice there was considerable discrimination. Although the law prohibits marriage for girls before the age of 18, child brides were common, and girls were sometimes forced to marry before the onset of puberty. Social, economic, and religious values promoted the practice of child marriages. According to the Ministry of Health, girls' average age of marriage was 16 years, and boys' average age was 18. An age difference in marriage often was cited as a cause of domestic violence.

 

Internal displacement due to the decade-long Maoist conflict continued to be a problem, with estimates of the number displaced ranging widely. As IDPs, children faced inadequate access to food, shelter, and health care and had limited access to education.

 

 

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS

 

The law prohibits all forms of trafficking in persons; however, trafficking in women and children remained a serious problem.

 

The country was a source country for trafficking. Young women were the most common targets. Trafficking of boys rarely was reported, but girls as young as nine years were trafficked, primarily to neighboring countries. Although the majority of trafficking was of women and girls for sexual exploitation, men, women, and children also were trafficked for domestic service, manual or semiskilled bonded labor, work in circuses, or other purposes. Men were trafficked for involuntary servitude in Iraq by labor recruiting agencies; they generally were promised jobs in other Gulf countries but were subsequently transferred to Iraq under threat or deception. There were more reports than in previous years that men were trafficked for labor exploitation to the Middle East. Most women and girls trafficked from the country went to India, lured by promises of jobs or marriage.

 

An estimated 12,000 women and children were trafficked into sexual exploitation in Indian brothels, and an unspecified number were victims of internal sex trafficking. Traffickers posing as labor recruiting agencies sent women to Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf states for sexual exploitation and domestic servitude.

 

Community Action Center, an NGO that assists female sex workers, estimated that in August there were 5,275 women working in the sex industry in the Kathmandu valley.

 

Internal trafficking for forced labor and sexual exploitation also occurred and appeared to increase during the year. According to studies conducted by Save the Children and Action Aid, internal trafficking likely was on the rise due to the lingering effects of the insurgency, as rural women and children left their homes to seek employment and security in urban centers. A 2007 NHRC report estimated that approximately 40,000 female workers between the ages of 12 and 30 worked in 1,200 cabin and dance restaurants and massage parlors in the Kathmandu valley. The girls reportedly had been assured jobs, primarily in the Middle East.

 

Traffickers were usually from the country or India and often had links to brothels in India, but recruiters who sought girls in villages were primarily Nepali citizens. In many cases parents or relatives sold women and young girls into sexual slavery. Corruption was also believed to facilitate trafficking, but there were few reported investigations or prosecutions of complicit government officials.

 

 

NATIONAL/RACIAL/ETHNIC MINORITIES

 

There were more than 75 ethnic groups who spoke 50 different languages. In remote areas school lessons and radio broadcasts often were in the local language. In urban areas education was almost exclusively offered in Nepali or English.

 

Discrimination against lower castes and some ethnic groups, particularly Madhesis and Janajatis, was especially common in the Terai and in rural areas in the western part of the country, even though the government outlawed the public shunning of Dalits and made an effort to protect the rights of disadvantaged castes. Better education and higher levels of prosperity, especially in the Kathmandu valley, were slowly reducing caste distinctions and increasing opportunities for lower socioeconomic groups.

 

Resistance to intercaste marriage (upper and lower caste) remained high.

 

 

PROHIBITION OF FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR

 

The law prohibits forced or compulsory labor. In practice there were reports that forced labor occurred, especially in domestic servitude, food services, and the sex industry.

 

Bonded labor remained a problem primarily in the agricultural sector as well as the small formal sector, which included brick and kiln works and food services such as tea shops and restaurants. Enforcement of the Kamaiya Prohibition Act of 2002 by the government was uneven, and social integration of the Kamaiyas--former bonded laborers--was difficult. During the year the government rehabilitated an additional 4,870 Kamaiyas, bringing the total rehabilitated to 20,402 of a total 27,570, mostly living in Dang, Banke, and Kanchanpur districts. Most unrehabilitated Kamaiyas lived in Bardiya and Kailali districts.

 

 

PROHIBITION OF CHILD LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT

 

The law establishes a minimum age for employment of minors at 16 years in industry and 14 years in agriculture, and it mandates acceptable working conditions for children.

 

Child labor was a significant problem, particularly in the large informal sector, including agriculture, domestic service, portering, rag picking, and rock breaking. The agricultural sector accounted for an estimated 95 percent of child laborers. Children working in textiles and embroidery faced hazards, as they were confined to small, poorly ventilated rooms where they worked with sharp needles. Resources devoted to enforcement were limited.

 

 

ACCEPTABLE CONDITIONS OF WORK

 

The minimum wage for unskilled laborers was approximately 4,600 rupees per month (approximately $65). The wage for semiskilled workers was set at 4,650 rupees ($66), for skilled workers at 4,760 rupees ($67), and for highly skilled workers at 4,950 rupees ($70). None of these minimum wages was sufficient to provide a decent standard of living for a worker and family. It is possible to increase this wage through a tripartite mechanism comprising representatives of the government, the employer, and the employee. Wages in the informal service sector and in agriculture ranged from 100 to 190 rupees per day ($1.28 to 2.43). The law calls for a 48-hour workweek, with one day off per week and one-half hour of rest per eight hours worked, and it limits overtime to 20 hours per week with 50 percent overtime pay per hour. In practice these laws were effectively enforced. Labor regulations also apply to foreign and migrant workers.

 

 

Workers did not have the right to remove themselves from dangerous work situations without fear of losing their jobs. Although the law authorizes labor officers to order employers to rectify unsafe conditions, enforcement of safety standards remained minimal.

 

 

For the complete report, link here:

US State Department's 2009 Human Rights Report on Nepal

 

 

 

 

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Child Sacrifice in Nepal; Four Men Arrested

February 12, 2010

According to Agence France-Presse, the murderers of an eight-year-old girl were finally apprehended this week. The tragic incident occurred in early December of 2009.

"The circumstances of the killing in early December suggest the girl was sacrificed," local police official Narhari Adhikari told AFP from Rupandehi district in the south of Nepal.

The child's throat had been slit and her body pierced with a sharp weapon. Local media reported her blood was found inside a brick kiln along with religious offerings of money and food.

"We have arrested four people including the owner of the brick kiln on charges of murder. Two of those arrested confessed they killed the girl as an offering to the gods to bring good fortune to the business," he added.

Nepal outlawed human sacrifice in 1780, but experts have long insisted that it is still practiced by some communities in backward rural areas.

"Some people still believe sacrificing human beings will appease the gods, improve their fortunes and raise their social status," said Chunda Bajracharya, professor of cultural studies at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan University.

The general Nepali public are horrified by such primitive and barbaric practices, but the incident should serve to remind the public how far Nepal still needs to come in protecting its children’s rights. Bonded child laborers and child slaves still exist in Nepal.  Some children are sold by their parents for as little as $40 to middlemen, who sell them to private households where they are forced to do domestic chores up to 16 hours a day. Others migrate with their parents to unsupervised industries, such as brick factories, where the children are put to work as donkey handlers or brick carriers. Still other children are lured away from their parents by despicable agents who promise the parents that their offspring will be given a good education – but once in the custody of the agents, false documents are created to “prove” that they are orphans and, ultimately, end up in adoption centers that cater to wealthy Westerners, particularly from the United States, Spain, Italy and France. (The latest Hague Conference report just censored Nepal’s continuing lax adoption practices.)

One final note: Rupandehi district, where the eight-year-old girl was cruelly sacrificed, also boasts the site of the birthplace of Nepal’s most famous son. Siddhartha Gautama, the historic Buddha, was born in Lumbini, not too far from where the girl was slaughtered. Lumbini is one of Nepal’s major tourist attractions. It’s a deeply sad irony – lost on tourists and the Nepali government alike – the latter of whom are too busy fighting among themselves to rectify the cruel superstitions and lack of education that feed into and allow such horrifying practices to remain a reality in the hinterlands.

 

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Suicide Leading Cause of Death Among Young Nepali Women

 

January 23, 2010

 

The IRIN, a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs,  reported yesterdays that suicide has emerged as the single leading cause of death among women in Nepal aged 15-49, outranking other causes such as accidents and disease.

 

The Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Study 2008/2009 undertaken by the Family Health Division (FHD) of the Department of Health Services looked at changes in maternal mortality in Nepal since 1998, when the last survey was done.

 

The yearlong study of women of reproductive age (15-49 years) was carried out in eight districts chosen to represent different ethnicities and levels of development in Nepal.

 

The total population of women of this age group in these districts was over 86,000. But in preliminary findings that the study described as shocking, of the 1,496 deaths recorded, suicide - rather than maternal-related issues - was the single leading cause of death, accounting for 16 percent of deaths.

 

In the 1998 study, suicide ranked as the third single cause of death.

 

The finding "highlights the urgent need to address this issue, which has received little attention since its significance was first noted in 1998," the study said.

 

The second single leading cause was accidents, accounting for 9 percent of deaths; no details were specified about the nature of these.

 

"We are absolutely concerned with the findings. This was totally unexpected," Bal Krishna Subedi, who led the study and is a former FHD director, told IRIN. "It has opened our eyes to delve into this issue," he said.

 

The study also found the overall maternal mortality rate in Nepal had improved to 229 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, compared to 539 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 1998.

 

The study said mental health problems, relationships, marriage and family issues were factors in suicides, as was youth, since 21 percent of the suicides were committed by young women aged 18 years and under.

 

However, it did not elaborate on these issues and noted that more research was required into the causes.

 

"Research is needed to improve understanding of the circumstances and contributory factors of these tragic events, to guide interventions," it said.

 

"We need more analysis to find the causes behind suicide, in order to go forward to address this serious concern at the community level," said Sushil Baral, health adviser for the Nepal office of the UK Department for International Development (DFID), one of the study’s funders.

 

"Gender-based violence could be one of the major cause(s), but to what extent it actually impacts, needs to be further studied," he said.

 

Women activists said the study results were not surprising, and that the problem could be even more widespread because suicides are under-reported.

 

"Most families will never report suicide cases as they are afraid of being entangled in police cases," Pinky Rana, director of Samanta, a local women’s rights NGO, told IRIN.

 

The only way to prevent suicides is to criminalize the causes of death, such as dowry disputes and domestic violence, said Sapana Malla Pradhan, a member of parliament and president of the Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD).

 

"Once there is suicide, the case is closed and never investigated on what led women committing such [a] drastic step,” said Pradhan.

 

There was a need for proper research to get an accurate picture of suicide among women. However, most aid agencies were not interested in funding such research or studies, she added.

 

Women’s groups also said there was a need for psychosocial counseling in many parts of the country to help women to cope with issues such as depression.

 

"There is a crucial need for counseling training programs and we need more counselors to help these poor victims," said Pradhan.

 

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Sex Trafficking and Why Prostitution should not be Legalized -- an article by Ruchira Gupta

December 24, 2009

 

Outlookindia.com just published an article  written by a friend of mine, Ruchira Gupta, one of the world’s preeminent leaders in anti-sex-trafficking. Among other things, Ruchira is the founder and president of Apne Aap Women Worldwide.  (Ruchira’s complete bio can be viewed at the end of the article.)

 

 

To Let / For Sale?

by Ruchira Gupta

           

When a problem is big and tends to profit a powerful group, there’s a time-honored temptation to sweep it under the rug by assuming it’s natural and inevitable. This was true of slavery until the abolitionist movement of the 19th century, and of colonialism until the contagion of independence movements in the 20th century. Now these same forces are at work in attitudes toward the global and national realities of sex slavery.

 

The biggest normalizer of profiteering from the rental, sale and invasion of human bodies is the idea that it is too big to fight, that it has always existed, and that it can be swept under the rug by legalizing and just accepting it. Those who profit—in this case, the global network of sex traffickers, sex tourism operators and brothel owners—are the major force behind the argument to legalize and increase profits that already rival those from the global arms and drug trade.

 

What will diminish and end this injustice? Exposing its reality: the lack of alternatives for those who are prostituted; the addiction and inability to empathize among those who create the demand, and the disastrous results wherever the selling or renting of human beings for sexual purposes has been legalized and normalized.

 

In Australia and the Netherlands where prostitution has been legalized, for instance, trafficking and the harms that come with it have only increased. In Victoria, Australia, it not only allowed legal brothels to proliferate, but illegal brothels increased by 300 per cent in a year. A hospitable environment for sex tourists and other buyers drove up demand local women and girls had too many alternatives to becoming the supply, they had to be trafficked from Southeast Asia.

 

The same is true of Amsterdam where trafficked East European and North African girls outnumber Dutch citizens in brothels. The mayor of Amsterdam reports that the red-light district has become a centre for illegal immigration and money laundering. In Germany and in an area near Las Vegas where prostitution has been legalized, government agencies tried to make applicants for unemployment benefits show they had attempted to find ‘work’ in the so-called ‘hospitality industry’ of prostitution in order to become eligible for such benefits. This was only defeated by massive organizing by women’s movements.

 

In the few countries that have legalized prostitution—with the idea that it would reduce harm to prostituted women, as is now being argued by some in India—rates of assault and rape against the prostituted have not dropped.  There is also no corroborated evidence that legalization increases the use of condoms or women’s power to demand such use. On the contrary, an official emphasis on condoms has often made it possible for brothels to demand more money for unprotected sex, while also causing them to conceal the number of prostituted women and children who have lost their lives to AIDS.

 

In Calcutta, a group of women who had asked for the unionization of prostitution to guarantee workers’ rights admitted to facing violence when they’re alone with the client. “They paid for it, we cannot stop it.” A doctor working for this group said he left after having to stitch up the vagina of a fifteen-year-old Nepali girl—for the third time.

But there is some good news. It comes from countries where traffickers have been pursued, and prostituted women and children have been given services and alternatives. Sweden has gone after traffickers and pimps, confiscated their illegal assets, and made them compensate for damages while also decriminalizing and offering services to prostituted women and children. By imposing penalties on those who create the demand and providing ‘John schools’ that address their addiction to dominance, they diminish the problem itself.

 

The result has been a significant decrease in sex trafficking and the commodification of sex. In ’99, it was estimated that 1,25,000 Swedish men bought about 2,500 prostituted women one or more times per year, before the law came into force. By ’02, this figure had fallen to no more than 1,500 women. The only truly effective way to curb trafficking is to see it for what it is, an outrage to human rights; one that can diminish, just as labor slavery and colonialism have come to do. Prostitution has not existed in all societies: it is a function of the inequality of women and the equation of masculinity with domination. All men in the present are not dependent on prostitution.

 

Commodification of human beings creates a separate class of people whose bodies can be rented or sold—the very opposite of the universal protection of human dignity enshrined in the body of the Indian constitution.

 

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Ruchira Gupta - President Apne Aap Women Worldwide has worked for 25 years to end human trafficking.[1] She was awarded the Abolitionist Award by the UK House of Lords in 2007,[2] won an Emmy for ‘outstanding investigative journalism’ her documentary, 'The Selling of Innocents' and has been honored at the White House for her work to combat trafficking. She has founded Apne Aap (www.apneaap.org), a grassroots organization supported over 10,000 women and children trapped in or at risk to prostitution.

 

She sits on the Steering Committee for the Planning Commission of the Government of India for the 11th Five-year Plan for Women and Children and on the Working group of the Ministry of Women and Children. She is on the Advisory board of Asia Society, New York, Coalition against Trafficking in Women, Asia-Pacific, Cents for Relief, US, Nomi Network, US, Ricky Martin Foundation and Vital Voices, Washington DC. Her testimony to the United States Senate had a direct role in the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, 2000.

 

She has worked in the United Nations for the last ten years and helped the Government of Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia, Kosovo and Philippines to develop National Action Plans and laws against human trafficking. She has written two manuals developed with UNODC and UNIFEM.

 

Her publications on trafficking include: a) Trafficking Responses in Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia: Needs, Capacity assessment and Recommendations b) Trafficking in the Asia and Near East region: Problem analysis and Proposed framework for response; Kosovo plan of action to counter trafficking in persons; c) Manual for law-enforcement officers to confront Demand for Human trafficking.; d) Manual for prosecutors to confront human trafficking

 

Her work has been cited in the following books: Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristoff and A. Wu, Sale by Patricia McCormick, That Takes Ovaries by Rivka Solomon, Adventure Divas by Holly Morris, Ten Thousand Miles without a Cloud by Sun Shun Yun, Breaking the Earthenware Jar by Ruth Hayward, Revisiting India by Ramin Jehanbegloo, Violence against Women by Kalyani Sen, and In the name of Ram By Abid Surti.

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SURVIVOR: The Story of a Nepali Girl Sold into Sexual Slavery

INTERVIEW WITH SUNITA DANUWAR

April 17, 2009
































DUNHAM: Sunita, thank you so much for taking time to speak with me – particularly since this is Nepali New Years day, when everyone is on holiday. We are here in Kathmandu at the office of AATWIN and also Shakti Samuha. You, along with fourteen other girls, founded Shakti Samuha in 1996. Why was it founded?

SUNITA: In 1996 India enacted a law that made it illegal for girls under the age of eighteen to be involved with the sex trade. Many brothels were raided at that time and underage girls were rescued. Of the 500 girls rescued, 128 were from Nepal. I was one of them.

Our organization rose out of decision to dedicate ourselves to rehabilitating survivors of sex trafficking.

DUNHAM: When you were a girl, you were drugged, abducted and sold into a Bombay brothel. Please tell me about your childhood and how it came about that you met such an awful fate.

SUNITA: I was born in a remote area of mid-western Nepal: Dailekh district.

DUNHAM: What is your birth year?

SUNITA: I’m not really sure. My citizenship certificate says 1976, but that may be off by two or three years. My father was involved in politics and was respected in our VDC. I had ten siblings, six of whom died in childhood, leaving three girls and one boy. My mother was of conservative beliefs: My brother was the most important child in her eyes because, if he died, there would be no one to conduct her funeral rites. This is very important in Hindu society.

When I was approximately five years old, my mom took my siblings and me with her on a long journey. She said we were going to my older sister’s house – my sister was already married and living to the south in Bardia [Midwest district along the Indian border]. My father was away at that time: He had gone to the district headquarters for some political function. He had no idea that my mother was planning on leaving. We were children, so we followed our mother without question.

There were no vehicles. We had to walk a great distance. Some Jumlis [natives of Jumla district] were acting as our guides to Bardia. But because we were walking so slowly, they eventually abandoned us. We were so hungry. There were no houses around. At some point we found a roadside teahouse. My mom almost begged for some food, to save our lives. The innkeeper took pity on us and fed us.

My father, who in the meantime had discovered what my mother had done, caught up with us at that teahouse. We saw him approaching from a distance and my mother tried to hide us, but he found where we were hiding. He scolded my mother. “Why did you do this? If you wanted to visit your daughter, I would have taken you. Now look what you’ve done to the children! They’re worn out, their feet are swollen, and they are hungry.”
My mother kept silent. But the next day, we all continued to Bardia, including my father

Once in Bardia, my mother refused to go back to Dailekh. She said the place was cursed by a witch and that, if she returned, my brother, her only remaining son, would die. The problem was that one of my sisters had been left in our village in Dailekh, so my father returned to the village, sold our property, and came back with my sister to start a new life in a different district.

My parents decided to set up a teashop as a means of making a living. This was in the adjoining district of Surkhet. The teashop was a success because it was on a main east-west road. There were lots of travelers who passed by each day. Gradually, my father worked less and less and, finally, he stopped working altogether. Every day he took 2-3000 rupees, disappeared, then came back late at night empty-handed. This went on for some time: we worked and my father spent all the money we had worked for. It made things difficult.

One day after my father left the teashop, my mother told me and my brother to secretly follow him -- to find out where he had been going each day and what he was really doing. We followed him some distance until we reached a Badi community [Badi signifies a prostitution caste]. He went into a Badi house. We peeked inside a window and saw my father and a woman together, naked. We rushed back to our teashop and told Mom what we had seen. She ran to the Badi house and saw my father and the woman with her own eyes. She couldn’t take it. There was a big fight. Finally, she forced my father to sell our teashop and to move away from there. We migrated to India.

We went through so many hard times in India. Initially, we settled in Himanchal Pradesh, or maybe it was Jammu or Kashmir. Wherever it was, I remember that the land produced a lot of potatoes. We got involved in potato farming. My father had a job collecting potatoes from all the farmers. There were many seasonal laborers who came down to this place from Dailekh, my home district. They found harvesting potatoes.

In the meantime, I was so eager to study! and I constantly asked my father to let me go to school. But he told me that it would be impossible because we were always migrating. “We don’t know where we will be tomorrow,” he would tell me. My father had passed his SLC, so he promised me that he would teach me enough so that, at least, I could read and write the alphabet. He kept his promise.

As I said before, the reason we became migrants was because of my mother’s belief that my brother had had a curse cast on him by a witch in our hometown. We kept moving because she wanted to protect my brother. But in the end, it didn’t do any good.

One day, my father’s youngest brother showed up and, soon after, left with my brother. We had no idea where my uncle took him or what that uncle of mine had said to him to persuade my brother to leave. My mother was beside herself.

Another one of my father’s brothers made a living by bringing seasonal laborers from Dailekh to our potato farm. Later we realized that he had secretly made a deal with a Brahmin – a deal that would change my life: He had sold me to the Brahmin for 3000 Indian rupees, promising him that he could have me as his wife. I must have been around twelve at the time.

Meanwhile, my father was trying to find out where his brother had my brother. Psychologically, my mother was is a very bad way. She became very quite and withdrew into herself. Then, there was more sad news: My paternal grandfather died, so my father left to attend to the funeral rites in Nepal.

One day, while my father was away and while my mother was working in the potato field, the Brahmin arrived. He found me in our house alone and cornered me. He told me that he had paid my uncle 3000 Indian rupees to marry me. The Brahmin was around 35 years old. He told me that I was his wife and then he raped me. Then he left.

When my mother found me, I was crying and I told her what he had done to me. She said that the only thing we could do was to wait until my father returned from Nepal, and then he would do whatever had to be done.

My father loved me. He treated me as if I were his son, not a daughter. I always helped him in his carpentry and masonry. When he returned, he said that the only way to protect me from the Brahmin—who would surely return – was for the family to flee.

We abandoned all of our possessions, including the potato crop. We were ashamed of what had happened to me and didn’t want our neighbors to know. We left for Nainital [India], where it was now rumored that my brother had been taken by the uncle.

After walking for many many hours through jungle, we arrived at small town, got on a bus and drove to Manali or maybe Kulu. Anyway, Nainital was still far away and we had run out of money. My father found a job in a rock-crushing factory. His plan was to earn just enough money to continue our trip to Nainital.

It so happened that there were two young Nepali guys who were also working at the rock-crushing factory. They carried big rocks onto the back of the tractor. They tried to ingratiate themselves with my family. We had no idea at the time, but later it became clear that they also acted as sex-trafficking brokers.

The two young guys succeeded in getting close to my mother first. She began to trust them and ended up telling them our entire story – all the things that had happened to us --the story about my missing brother, about the fact that we had no money, and that once we saved enough money we would continue on to Nainital.

The young guys acted like they sympathized with my mother and told her how they, too, had fallen on hard times and were forced to work in the rock factory. They said, “We should travel with you, when we get ready to go the Nainital.” A week later, with my father’s pay, we headed out for Nainital and the young guys came with us.

I had a not-very-good-feeling about these guys. They kept trying to get close to me. They told me that if I was looking for a job to help my parents, they could help me. But I kept avoiding them. During the trip, we stopped to spend the night in a roadside lodge. That night the two guys offered me some sweets, but I refused to accept. Then my father told me, “They are behaving like brothers. What harm is there in accepting their sweets?” So I reluctantly took the sweets because my father insisted.

And I don’t remember anything after that. I passed out.

When I came to, I was in a brothel in Bombay.

Everything was foreign. My parents weren’t there.  The room I woke up in was completely strange. There were strangers around me and I asked, “What am I doing here? Where are my parents?” One woman told me, “Your two brothers brought you here. They have gone out to buy some clothes for you. You stay here and they will be back soon.”

I was completely confused: I had only one brother. How could I suddenly have two brothers? I told them, “I don’t have two brothers”. But they convinced me to stay there until the guys came back.

But the “two brothers” didn’t return. A few days passed, and still they didn’t come back. I fell into despair. All I could do was cry and shout. I was only thinking about my parents. I told the people to let me go, that I would somehow find my parents on my own, without anyone’s help. But they wouldn’t let me leave.

Some time passed. One day a fat Nepali lady came into my room and informed that I had been there for a long time and that now I must do dhanda. [In Hindi, “dhanda” means sex-related work.] But in Nepali “dhanda” means “household work”. I thought household work was what she was talking about. So I told the fat Nepali woman, “But I don’t know how to do household work! My mother always does the cooking and washing, so I’m of no use to you. Let me go!”

It was only then that she told me that I was in Bombay. I was completely shocked. I passed out I was so shocked. You see, I had once overheard my father saying that, in Bombay, Nepali girls were sold into brothels.

The people who were keeping me in the room didn’t care how long or hard I cried. One day, the manager, who was supposedly the husband of the fat Nepali women, barged into the room and came at me with a long Nepali khukuri [curved knife] and threatened me – he said he would cut me into pieces and throw the pieces in the road if I didn’t do dhanda.

I told him, “I don’t care if you kill me, cut me or burn me alive. I will never do dhanda.”
I managed to resist for about a month and caused a lot of trouble for them.

One day, the two young guys who had drugged me and sold me suddenly appeared at the brothel. They headed off in the direction of the toilet and I followed them and waited for them to come out. I went crazy. I beat the hell out of them. The manager was nearby and he came up and beat me, then locked me in a room. Later I found out why the two Nepalis had returned to the brothel. It had nothing to do with me. They had brought another girl – a nine-year-old girl – and had sold her to the brothel. Just like they had sold me before.

Soon after, the owner of the brothel sold me to another brothel in Bombay for twice the money. In the new brothel, I put up a fight and resisted for one week. But there came a moment when I could resist no longer. I was forced to have sex. And that was that.

DUNHAM: The new brothel: what was it like?

SUNITA: There are two types of brothels in Bombay. One is called a pilos, which is small -- one room with beds separated by many curtains. In a pilos the girls grab customers off the street, then they take them inside to one of the beds.

The other kind of brothel is called a bungalow. That’s where I was. In a bungalow, there is a fixed rate, per hour, per day, per month and up to six months. For an Indian customer for an hour, it would cost 3-500 rupees. For a foreigner, the cost would be 1,000-1200 rupees. In bungalows, there are beautiful girls with nice bodies; the customer comes and selects the girl he wants. It was a big house where I was. There were 40-45 women living there.

DUNHAM: How did you cope?

SUNITA: I was having these feelings. I was drowning in self-pity. I started to realize the hopelessness of my situation. I saw new girls arriving – children arriving – I couldn’t go to talk to them or in any way comfort them. If I had tried to do that, I would have been tortured. There was always punishment if I didn’t do what they told me to do. If I refused to have sex, I would be tortured – pinched everywhere – they would do anything that came into their minds that might hurt my body. And also the way they talked to us…they talked to us as if we were animals. That’s what my life turned into: day after day.

One day, after five or six months in the new brothel, I suddenly had a premonition that something very big was going to happen. I couldn’t sleep the whole night, in spite of the fact that I was so tired. I was confused, scared. Finally, just before sunrise, I passed out.

Now as it happened, the owner of the brothel hadn’t bought me; instead, it was one of the prostitutes in the brothel who had bought me – that sometimes happens. Originally, she had been trafficked as well. Anyway, that morning, she knocked on my door, which was strange. She had never knocked before – no one every bothered to knock on my door – and there she was, standing in the doorway. In the brothel, my name was “Usha” [Sanskrit for “dawn”]. The prostitute said, “Usha, get up and dress. You and I are going to the cinema!”

Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. I wasn’t even allowed to approach the gate, or go outside -- let alone go to the cinema! Security was always tight. The gate was always locked. When clients came, the guard would open the gate for them, and then he immediately locked it, once they passed through.

I didn’t know what to think about going to the cinema. If I said “no” I would be tortured and beaten. So I started to get dressed, but very slowly, while I tried to gather my thoughts. They kept saying “hurry up, hurry up!”

I came out of the room in a kurtha-suruwal, but then I changed my mind. I wanted to put something else on. So I went back inside and started to change. By the time I came out the second time, and was heading out toward the gate, the police barged through the gate. (Had I not gone back to change, I would have been already out of the brothel, on my way to the cinema, and I never would have been rescued. Obviously, the brothel owner had been tipped off about the raid and the cinema invitation was just a ploy to get me out peacefully.)  The police asked me “Where are you going? Come here!” and told me to step over to the side and stay there. Then the police went inside and brought all of the girls under the age of eighteen outside where I was standing. That is how I was rescued.

DUNHAM: How many of the girls were underage?

SUNITA: Twelve. Of course if a brothel has really young girls, they put them in a separate house called a kholi. They feed the girls with food full of nutrients and protein so that they will grow faster and start to dhanda sooner. Other girls who were under eighteen, told the police that they were over eighteen because that’s what the brothel owner had taught them to say. So they remained in the brothel. Since few of the girls have official documents, it’s impossible for the police to know who is really underage.

DUNHAM: What happened next, after you were freed from the brothel?

SUNITA: We were placed in various Indian government rehabilitation centers. There was no freedom in the centers. We were guarded and couldn’t go out. They were very abusive. We were abused while eating, walking, speaking. We were mentally tortured by all the foul words they called us. They repeated, over and over, how bad we were.

Eventually, some of the girls got released. The girls who were Indian nationals were returned to their homes. The Bangladeshi girls were returned to Bangladesh. It was us -- the Nepali girls  -- who weren’t released.

[Note: Though petitioned to do so, the Nepali government refused to allow the Nepali girls to return to Nepal. The government demanded proof, documentation, that the girls were Nepali citizens – something few, if any, of the girls were in a position to provide.]

In the meantime, many of the Nepali girls were so afraid of our keepers, and so afraid that they would be resold to different brothels, that they decided it would be safer to return to our old brothel. They managed to escape from the center.

That left my group of twelve. There were other girls in the center, but my group was all from the same brothel. We were determined not to return to the brothel, no matter what happened. We would take our chances, out on the streets of Bombay, if necessary, but we would stay together as a group.

There was a twelve or thirteen year old girl in the center who was in the last stages of AIDS. Blood was oozing out of her skin. We implored the lady in charge of our detention to do something, to take her to the hospital for treatment. We were afraid that the girl’s blood was going to infect us; we were all sequestered in the same room.

But the lady had no pity. She said to us, “Why are you worried? All of you came from the same place so all of you are going to die the same way. If you see this girl die in front of you, then it will be easier for you when you die. At least you know now what fate awaits you.”

The next day, the AIDS victim fainted while going to the toilet and died. My group could no longer control our anger. We had begged and begged for the lady to help the twelve-year-old but she had just mocked us. She and the whole institution killed that innocent girl.

Anyway, we couldn’t stand it any longer. We were locked in the room but each day a big iron pot was brought into our room. The pot held the roti, which was our daily meal. So after the girl died, we broke the lock on our door by smashing the pot against the lock. We rushed out. And our anger was directed at the lady who had been so cruel. The lady had two daughters and she was just getting ready to take her daughters to school when we ran out.

The first thing we did was cut the telephone wire. Our intention was to fight as long as possible before the police were tipped off.

The center where we were living was located on the main road of Chainpur. We threw everything we could lift and threw it out the windows into the street below. And then we turned our attention on the lady’s private quarters, which was a separate part of the compound. We threw stones at her windows and door. Our intention was to kill her daughters. We really intended to do it. Our only thought was “an eye for an eye”. There was a young dead girl in our quarter and we wanted there to be dead girls in the lady’s quarters. The lady saved her daughters by hiding them under a bed. In the meantime, the police were tipped off, they arrived and charged us with batons, brutally beating us, hitting us especially around the sensitive areas. Many of us passed out from the pain.

We were dragged back up the stairs, back to our old quarters; only the windows and door were replaced with iron. We couldn’t even look out. Everyone at the center changed after that. We kept asking them to either send us back to Nepal or let us go but they answered back, “Why would we let you go? Your country doesn’t want you and if we release you, you’ll just run back to the brothel.”

Finally, Mr. Gauri Pradhan [now one of three commissioners for the Nepal National Human Rights Commission] and a lady we didn’t know came to the center to talk to us. Mr. Pradhan sat down and we pulled up around him in a tight circle – there about twenty-five us – and we ridiculed him for being a Nepali man. It was Nepali men who had deceived us and sold us – we hated all Nepali men. We asked him how much was he going to sell us for and how much money would he make from selling us.

But after a while, he managed to calm us down and made us believe that he was there for our benefit. He informed us the Nepali government was unwilling to bring us home. But he and the lady with him represent seven human rights organizations that sincerely wanted to bring us to Nepal and challenge the government in its decision to leave us in India.

When he left, we were so happy to know that we were getting out of India. A week later, we were flown back to Kathmandu.

But the mental torture was not over.

When we arrived in Nepal, the media hunted us all the way from airport. They were taking picture in the airport with big cameras. The television networks and the papers published our photos and that really hurt us mentally. How could we start a new life if everyone knew we had been working in Bombay brothels? Being trafficked was bad enough – now the media was ridiculing us.

Twelve of us, including me, were placed in WOREC (Women rehabilitation center). Some girls were staying in Maiti Nepal, SAATHI and other organization. Once all of us were settled in different rehabilitation center, WOREC brought us to Bir Hospital for HIV testing and many girls were infected with HIV.

The girls who were infected started to cry. There were so many mixed feeling. On the one hand we feared death and on the other hand we felt guilty, thinking that it was our fault, that we had brought our fate upon ourselves.

Those of us who were not infected began to focus our attention on those who were: We tried to convince them that it was not their fault and that we might be infected as well, it just hadn’t shown up yet.

When Dr. Renu, [who was the president of WOREC at that time], saw us crying she understood the trauma we were going through. She organized basic health training for us. There were fifteen participants including the twelve of us living in WOREC.

The ten-day training really helped our morale: In addition to basic health and hygiene issues we were also counseled on how to bring positive change in our own lives. We heard seminars on trafficking, human rights and women rights. It was only after the training that we began to realize that we weren’t responsible for being victims of trafficking and that there was no reason for us to feel guilt. 

So we decided to form a group to help girls who had faced the same crisis that we had endured. We believed in the power of our group, so we called our organization Shakti Samuha [Nepali for “power group”].

DUNHAM: Was it difficult to get Shakti Samuha recognized as a legitimate organization?

SUNITA: We had to fight with the government for four years before we were officially recognized. The difficult thing was that it was required that at least seven members on the board have citizenship certificates. Those of us who had parents asked them to help us get the certificates, but they refused on the grounds that we were bad girls and that we might later on try to get our hands on their property.

Eventually we overcame that hurdle, but there were other obstacles even after we had prepared all the legal documents.

On the first line of our manifesto, it says that we were girls who had been rescued from India brothels. When the Chief District Officer read that and looked at us and said, “You don’t have the skills or knowledge to run an organization. You need to be educated people, like doctors or engineers. Why don’t you be realistic? You are attractive young girls; why don’t you get jobs in cabin restaurants?

[Note: “Cabin restaurants” is a Nepali euphemism for cafes or bars with cubbies in the back designed for prostitution.]

We tried for four years to get that CDO’s signature before the organization was officially registered. That was in 2000. Finally we could proceed to work on the rights of those trafficked girls who had survived.

We discussed our agenda with one another and based on personal experience, we decided that we would first concentrate on the places that had the highest rate of sex trafficking: the slums and the carpet factories. Our initial drive was to raise awareness among the girls who worked in those areas. At the same time, we began to publicize our organization.

Then we concentrated on the anti-trafficking laws and rape laws that were in effect at that time. They were completely unsatisfactory so we organized road dramas in districts and also on the national level to raise awareness among the locals that laws need to be changed. We even traveled to India, Thailand with our road dramas.

DUNHAM: Why did you target the carpet factories?

SUNITA: The girls in the carpet factories were mostly illiterate and completely naïve of the manipulation and trickery of traffickers. The factories also had children working in them, and traffickers always targeted them. The sex brokers lured them with dream-promises and easily trapped them.

DUNHAM: Were these Nepalese or Tibetan carpet factories?

SUNITA: Nepalese. Most of the factories have been closed down.

Then we turned our attention to the organizations in Nepal that claimed that they were rehabilitating survivors of traffickers. You see, there are so many organizations in Kathmandu that spend a lot of money promoting their programs, making big conferences in five-star hotels, delivering sweet speeches and informing the press that they have helped huge numbers of girls. But in our center, we were hearing an entirely different story: We were interviewing lots of girls who told us that they hadn’t received any help. So who was telling the truth? We decided to do our own study to verify the claims made by the big organizations.

We conducted research in five districts: Sindhupalchok, Nuwakot, Makwanpur, Bara, and Rautahat. The survey concentrated on, “What is the condition of the rescued girls at the present time?”

I still remember one incident, during the survey, in Makwanpur district. There was a woman in the last stage of AIDS. Her family members had kept her in a cowshed with the farm animals. When we discovered her and introduced ourselves to her, she was furious with us because she had grown to be completely cynical about NGOs. But when we told her that we were different because we ourselves were victims of traffickers, she softened. She cried and told us how helpless she felt and she asked us, “What can you learn from me? I’m just waiting for my death.”

That response really touch us because we knew first-hand what she was talking about. She died a few days later.

We concluded from our survey that most of the NGOs were not of significant help. They would have a survivor may spend six to seven months in a rehabilitation center where she would receive training in sewing and tailoring. The NGO would then donate a sewing machine and a few thousand rupees to the survivor and then they would tell her, “Now you are rehabilitated. You have a skill that makes you self-reliant.” And then the survivor would be sent on her way.

But there was no follow-through.

The real situation was that, once they left the rehabilitation centers, most of the girls were faced with the problem of where to go: either they had no parents or they had stepparents. Most of the girls would not be welcomed in the stepparents’ homes. And if they were, they would be badly mistreated. The girls would sell the sewing machines for survival and suddenly, they were back to where they started before the “rehabilitation”.

We presented our findings to the donor agencies and briefed them on the real situation of the rescued girls. Save the Children Norway came forward and backed our projects in the five districts we had covered. We created a district-level network of survivors, through which we conducted trainings, provided [unintelligible] support, education support for both survivors and their children. These projects are still operating in the five districts.

Nuwakot, Sindhupalchok, and Makwanpur districts are still heavily target areas for sex-traffickers; the girls are still vulnerable in those areas. It used to be that the reported cases were isolated in these districts because of the stigma attached to being a sex-worker. But now, because of the awareness campaigns of various organizations, more and more cases are being reported; the woman want to take it to court, they want the criminals who forced them into sex-work brought to justice.  In fact, we have so many cases to bring to court that it’s all we can do to stay ahead.

DUNHAM: So you can get them to come forward and take their cases to court?

SUNITA: Yes. We have launched girls clubs (age 10-20) in various communities in the Kathmandu Valley. In the clubs, the girls are trained in self-awareness, ability to make others aware of the dangers of sex-trafficking, street drama performance training, interaction with parents (which includes the formation of mother-child groups), orientation, workshops and conferences. Once the training is completed, the clubs are fully capable of launching their own programs within their local communities. Nine clubs have completed our program, and we are training seven additional, new clubs at the present time. These clubs arise out of the community, but they also interact with the local school systems.

We are also working with other programs: a literacy program for women in Satidevi VDC of Nuwakot; shelters for rescued women – one in Kathmandu, and one in Sindhupalchok.

DUNHAM: How many women can each shelter accommodate?

SUNITA: 12-15 women in Kathmandu and that capacity will soon be increased. 10 in Pokhara. 20 in Sindhupalchok. We would like to accommodate more in Sindhupalchok – there certainly is the need – but we are not receiving any help from the government, so it’s difficult to extend the facility.

DUNHAM: Regarding the shelters: Do you also accept women who have been abused by their husbands, or is it restricted to victims of sex trafficking?

SUNITA: Our priority is survivors of sex trafficking. With the help of TDH here, we are receiving 16 survivors from Calcutta next week. These women are our priority. But, as we are a community-based organization, sometimes a case will be presented to us that we cannot refuse. We accept abused women for a limited time—usually around seven days – and refer them to another organization called Saathi, which specializes in abused women.

The other organization that I’m involved with, Alliance Against Trafficking in Women and Children in Nepal (AATWIN) is an alliance that supports Shakti Samuha to protect the human rights of the victims. Currently, I’m president of AATWIN. There is another anti-trafficking alliance based in Bangkok, called GAATW; I’m on its executive board. It’s a global organization that gives priority to organizations, which were created and are run by victims, not just outside people who want to help that particular cause.

DUNHAM: How is your organization funded?

SUNITA: Save the Children, Aasha Nepal UK, (for the hostels), TDH, and CWS, (for the emergency center in Pokhara.

DUNHAM: Do you have any private donors?

SUNITA: No.

DUNHAM: Do you need private donors?

SUNITA: Yes, we have lots of problems.

DUNHAM: We’ve been talking only about girls. Are there also boys who are trafficked?

SUNITA: Sometimes, yes. Mostly for manual labor. But they aren’t trafficked to India. The boys are trafficked to countries like Saudi Arabia, Gulf countries, Malaysia.

DUNHAM: Do you know how many boys are trafficked each year?

SUNITA: No, but I still remember an incident in which there were 12 boys from Udaypur district [southeastern Nepal]; they were told they would get goods jobs in Saudi, but once they got to Saudi, they had to work as shepherds in the desert. There was no food. Their only sustenance was sheep’s milk. When they complained to the broker that they wanted to return to Nepal, the broker told him he would turn them over to the police. They were in the desert for one-and-a-half years before getting back to Nepal.

There is a lot of that sort of problem. Because of the political instability and the ten-year conflict here, lots of women, children and youth have ended up in Gulf States like Oman and Qatar. And the women and children often end up being sold to the brothels. We conducted a regional workshop last year to find out the current trafficking trends. Today, the brokers first convince the people to go abroad, then they help the Nepalis get genuine citizenship papers, then they help them get passports, then they take them to India and on to the Gulf states like Oman. Once they get there, they’re forced to become sex workers –either that or forced to become household workers, where they are forced into sexual activities with the house owner or his guests.

I know of one case recently, in which a girl from Jhapa was trapped is sex work, couldn’t take it any more, and finally jumped out of a third-story window. She fell to her death.

DUNHAM: My last question is what happened to your family?

SUNITA: The sad thing is that it’s been twelve years since I’ve seen any of my family and I am not in contact with any of them. I don’t know where my parents are. I don’t know if they ever got to Nainital. I don’t know if they ever found my brother. I don’t even know if they’re dead or alive. I don’t know if the Brahmin is dead or alive.

The only good news for me is that my uncle who sold me to the Brahmin is now dead. When I was told about his death, I was advised to mourn him. Instead I went to a butcher shop and bought a kilo of meat and had a big party and invited all of my friends. 

Because of that man’s greed and treachery, because he sold me for 3000 rupees, my whole life was ruined.

Because of him, I went through hell.



For more information about Sunita Danuwar’s work, contact:

SHAKTI SAMUHA
Phone: 449-4815
Website: www.shaktisamuha.org.np
Email: Shakti@samuha.wlink.com.np

The Risks of Nepalis Working Abroad: Interview with Raj Kumar Guni

April 15, 2009



























In 2004, twelve Nepali non-skilled laborers were captured in Iraq, held hostage, tortured and finally murdered. One was beheaded while being videoed. The grizzly event was later aired on television throughout the Middle East. The remaining eleven hostages were shot, execution-style.

A terrorist group calling itself the “Army of Ansar al-Sunna”, who took credit for the carnage, later explained that the Nepalis had been “punished for helping the US.”

In fact, the victims’ connection to the US-led coalition was non-existent. They were lured to Iraq -- promised that they would earn the kind of money that was hard (if not impossible) to get back home.   They had no political agendas. They were simply coming to Iraq to be cooks and cleaners.

 This week I interviewed Raj Kumar Guni; a young Nepali who worked in Iraq two years after the twelve Neaplis had been murdered.

Raj’s determination to get ahead financially, in spite of the inherent risks in seeking work outside Nepal, speaks volumes about the plight of Nepali youths who, like Raj, feel that they must look to foreign countries for a brighter future. They take a deep breath, walk away from everything that is dear and familiar to them, and hope that luck is on their side.



RAJ: My name is Raj Kumar Guni. I was born in Nuwakot district, Sunkhani VDC. I’m 24 years old.

DUNHAM: What was your job in Iraq?

RAJ: I catered to the armed forces fighting in Iraq. I was kind of a waiter in a dining hall facility.

DUNHAM: Who was employing you?

RAJ: KBR. The main contractor was KBR. But the subcontractor was an Oman-based company. In our company there were about 500 Nepalis.

DUNHAM: Were you trained once you got to Iraq?

RAJ: Those who were there for security got training. But in the dining hall, there was no real training. We were feeding a multinational force, but there were only American troops in our camp.

DUNHAM: Where in Iraq was the camp located?

RAJ: Tikrit. It was a very big camp. We were working for Section C1.2. We served four to five thousand people each day, including civilian workers and troops.

 


DUNHAM: Was there any interaction between you and the American troops?

RAJ: No, not really. Very simple conversations limited to “yes” and “no” and the names of the food.

DUNHAM: No personal attachment or friendships?

RAJ: No.

DUNHAM: What was your daily routine, from the time you got up to the time you went to bed?

RAJ: It was a 24-hour facility. My group woke up at 8 am and began work at 8:30. Once we arrived at the facility, we cleaned the mess that had been left by the breakfast crew. Then we set the tables and prepared for the arrival of troops for lunch, which began at 11:00am and was over by 2:00pm. From 2-3 we had free time, either to eat or rest. It didn’t take us long to eat, so the hour was mostly about resting. Then we cleaned up the dining hall again, then got ready for the 5 pm dinner, which lasted until 8:30. After that, we returned to our quarters and went to sleep. It was a twelve-hour workday.

DUNHAM: What were your accommodations like? Prefab buildings?

RAJ: They were like transport containers, movable containers. Each container was well furnished and air-conditioned. The outside temperature went as high as 58 degrees centigrade, [136 degrees Fahrenheit] so when we went inside, it felt like we had gone to heaven.

If there was enemy action, our housing could be easily moved to a safer location. Each cabin had two sets of bunk beds. The toilets were portable too. To avoid getting too hot, we ran to the toilets.  We ran everywhere.

DUNHAM: Was the dining hall air-conditioned?

RAJ: Yes. Even though it was so big. The hall could accommodate 1500 troops in one sitting.

DUNHAM: So your movement was restricted between the sleeping containers and the toilets and the dining hall? That was your life while you were in Iraq?

RAJ: Yes, pretty much. There was a pathway that led from building to building, and if you varied from the paths, you didn’t know where a bullet might come from. There was always a chance of catching a bullet.

DUNHAM: You were never allowed off the base?

RAJ: No, except for one time: We had to get a multi-national identity card, which had the description of our jobs and nationality – it was issued by the American army – for that we had to go outside the camp once. It was about 20 kilometers outside the camp. That was the first and last time we got to see any Iraqis outside the camp.

We low-level employees were only allowed to go to the canteen, the hospital, the sleeping containers and the free bus that circled the base. Those were the only places we had permission to visit. The hospital was free for the workers.

DUNHAM: How long were you there?

RAJ: About one year. I was there in 2006-7.

DUNHAM: Any firefights around the base during your stay? 







RAJ: We were in the red zone in Tikrit. Tikrit was the hometown of Saddam Hussein. His birthplace was 15 kilometers from the base. Our camp had once been one of Saddam’s army base camps. 

On September 11, 2006, the Iraqis who loved Saddam celebrated in Tikrit. Everyone celebrated the anniversary of the bombing of the World Trade Center. That night, helicopters circled and patrolled our base non-stop. There was exchanged of gunfire that night. We saw tracers in the night sky. And then we were rushed into the bunker.

Another time I can’t forget ... It was fearful. Whenever the base was attacked, a red light would flash and we would have to run to the bunker. But the most dangerous times were when there were also sandstorms. It wasn’t just sand. Big pebbles would come flying. There would be no visibility. The wind was fierce. The terrorists would wait for these sandstorms and then they would fire RPGs on the base while there was no visibility. All we could do was seek shelter in the bunkers. It was terrifying.

DUNHAM: Was the camp ever seriously under fire while you were there?

RAJ: No, we never had to face that, though we heard that a nearby camp was heavily targeted.

DUNHAM: What about the Nepalis, who were captured, tortured and murdered? That was two years before you arrived, but you must have known about them.

RAJ: Oh yes. What I heard was that the twelve guys who were killed were part of a larger group of twenty-five. Twelve were captured and killed and thirteen got away.

In fact, I talked to one of the guys who escaped being kidnapped and killed. He told me that the capture took place just inside the Iraqi border. They drove into Iraq from the Jordanian border. They had waited a long time in Jordon to get to Iraq. That wait was really hard on them. Not all the Nepalis had enough money for the lengthy stay in Jordon. They almost ran out of money for food and housing before they were transported across the Jordanian border.

The twelve guys who were murdered had, in fact, some money with them. So they reserved a jeep with their own money, to drive into Iraq. But the other thirteen guys were almost out of money, so they had to take a cheap local bus to drive into Iraq. That crowded bus saved their lives. They blended in with the local people and, even if there were checkpoints, they were somehow overlooked by the Iraqi checkpoint guys. But the guys in the jeep stood out as foreigners and paid the price.

DUNHAM: Given the dangers of working in Iraq, I’m assuming the only reason you went was because of the good pay, right?

RAJ: It wasn’t only for the money. Yes, I was told that I would get 30,000 rupees a month [$350 US], so the money was a big part of it.

DUNHAM: How did you get the job?

RAJ: I knew a guy: I had a friend who owns a foreign employment company. I had transferred some Nepali laborers to Delhi for him, several times.

DUNHAM: How does that work – getting from Nepal to Iraq?

RAJ: Nepalis who want to go to Iraq first have to go to Delhi. From Delhi, they go to Bahrain, then to Dubai, then to Jordan, and finally to Iraq. It’s a long trip. During the journey into India, if the police suspect that the Nepalis are going abroad for employment, they confiscate their passports and extort money from them. So generally, the Nepalis know to keep their passports hidden.

But one of these guys, who was using my friend as a broker, hid his passport in his socks, and the humidity ruined his passport. My friend contacted me and said that if he didn’t replace the guy who had ruined his passport, he might lose his contract for the whole group. So I went to India. It was a good deal for me. I didn’t have to pay the brokers fee because I was doing my broker-friend a favor. In Delhi, I bought 5000 rupees worth of supplies [that I would need in Iraq].

DUNHAM: Did you like the work in Iraq?

RAJ: The food was good but I did not enjoy it. Then, eight months into my service there, I came down with appendicitis. They took out my appendix in Tikrit – in a very good army hospital called the 47th Combat Support Hospital.

In addition to the sick and wounded army troops, there were Iraqi terrorists being treated at the hospital – although the terrorists were bedded in a separate unit. The funny thing was that the wounded terrorists had to wear blindfolds the whole time -- even in bed.

After I healed, I told the company that I had had enough and wanted to return to Nepal. So I was sent to Baghdad, then Oman, where I received further treatment for ten days. And finally, I got back to Kathmandu.

DUNHAM: I’m guessing you won’t be going back to Iraq any time soon.

RAJ: I don’t think I’ll go back. The pay isn’t high enough to be tempted to go back. Still, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I took the challenge and I’m not sorry that I went. I went there with full knowledge of the twelve Nepalis who had been murdered there. I think I was brave. And also, during the process, I visited five countries. I received nice treatment at the hospital.

DUNHAM: What are you doing now? What is your job in Nepal these days?

RAJ: I’m a tire supplier here in Kathmandu.

DUNHAM: Would you ever consider going overseas again?

RAJ: Not right away. I’m in business with my maternal uncle. My brother is working in South Korea, but he will come back soon. After that, I really hope that I can find work in a European country.

DUNHAM: But it must be a big challenge to find work overseas these days. Malaysia, which offered jobs to so many Nepalis, has now closed its doors, for instance. What countries are still allowing Nepalis to enter their borders to work?

RAJ: I want to go to a European or developed country. Not the Middle East or Southeast Asian country. I know that Dubai has stopped recruiting as well.

DUNHAM: Are there European countries recruiting Nepalis?

RAJ: No, none. I’ve heard that Poland is going to accept workers sometime soon, but I’m not really sure. I have friends in Spain. If I go there, I can stay with them and they will support me, but it’s impossible to get a work permit if I go to Spain. At the same time, I’m considering the possibility of going to Israel to work as a caregiver.

DUNHAM: How much would it cost you to get to Spain, including visa?

RAJ: I don’t know about the visa, but I will have to pay the broker somewhere between 600,000 and 700,000 rupees [7,000 -- 8,000 US dollars].

DUNHAM: My god, that’s a lot! Tell me about these brokers you have to go through: are they legitimate or is their work illegal?

RAJ: Totally illegal. And it’s not worth paying a broker unless you have friends and relatives already in the country where you want to go. If your relatives have assured you that they will get you work, it’s OK to pay the broker the money, but otherwise you’ll just end up in a foreign country without job possibilities.

DUNHAM: Would you go on a tourist visa?

RAJ: Yes.

DUNHAM: While you were in Tikrit, were you able to send money back home to your family?

RAJ: Not personally. I never saw one dollar while I was there. I provided the company with my father’s bank account number in Kathmandu. They would wire money to the account and give me a receipt. From time to time, I would call home to make sure my father was getting the wires. There was no need for money in Tikrit. The food and accommodations were free. There was no place to go. No place to spend money.

DUNHAM: As a young Nepali man with experience abroad, what opportunities do you see in Nepal for good jobs? Are there any economic incentives that might make you want to remain in Nepal?

RAJ: There could be opportunities here. If the youth could unite and create collective projects, it would be possible to make as much money here as it would be to go abroad.

What happens to a young Nepali who grows up in a village is that, after you pass your SLC, you come to the urban area for further study, but all the urban advancements tempt you. So your studies are affected by all the city distractions and you want to be able to afford all the things you can buy in the city. Ultimately, this leads you to the conclusion that you have no other alternative but to go to the Gulf countries for work.

DUNHAM: What about Dr. Bhattarai’s recently announced program to launch self-employment grants. Do you think that is a step in the right direction?

RAJ: I didn’t apply for the program, but I think it’s a good one. What I understand is that 200,000 rupees is the maximum amount to be granted per person. But if you look at the budget allocation for that program – 500 million rupees – and the number of people who applied for grants – four to six thousand applicants per district [there are 75 districts in Nepal]– it seems to me that it’s just a populist slogan. But if the government significantly increases the budget for the program – enough to finance a large portion of the applicants – it would be really significant.

DUNHAM: Do you think that there is any one political party in Nepal that is more attuned to the youth and the problems that arise because of the high unemployment among the youth?

RAJ: Most of the parties have united and mobilized the youth to show the strength and muscle of the parties. It also seems that the youth are blindly following and rallying behind the most populist groups. In terms of the allocation of responsibility and representation, it seems that the United CPN (Maoists) are in the forefront of youth popularity and unity.

DUNHAM: Do you still feel, however, that the youth are under-represented in Nepal? Could, for example, the Maoists be doing more for the youth?

RAJ: I don’t precisely know how the Maoists divide and mete out responsibility to the youth within their party, but it’s obvious that large numbers of youth are mobilized for their political campaigns, elections, and rallies. Based upon that, I believe that they are being given proper representation. I believe that it would be better for everyone if the parties would give more responsibility to the youth and less to the old guys.

DUNHAM: I’m trying to figure out how many of the youth are actually trying to get the hell out of Nepal. In your village in Nuwakot, for example, what’s the percentage of youth who want to work outside of Nepal?



RAJ: Our village is no different than any other village in Nepal. From what I can tell, 80% of the youth in my village want to work abroad. And among the 80%, the only reason they haven’t gone abroad is because they either don’t have the money or they have other problems that are keeping them from leaving. As for the other 20%, they have enough financial security to keep them here.

DUNHAM: Are we talking about guys, or do the young women also want to go abroad?

RAJ: There are very few girls in my village who have gone abroad. But those who have went to Israel. Anyway, everyone -- including male and female -- the talk of the town is: who went where, who applied for which country and which company, how much money per month in salary, how long is the contract for, and who will return when? And who failed to get a contract? Who was rejected? Wherever you go, you only hear them talking about employment abroad.

DUNHAM: What kinds of Israeli jobs are offered to Nepali women?

RAJ: Caregivers.

DUNHAM: Are the young women treated well in Israel?

RAJ: Mostly, yes, they’re treated nicely. But we have heard that a few of the girls have been psychologically harassed, tortured, exploited as laborers.

DUNHAM: In your village, is there a history of girls being lured to India – thinking that they are being offered good jobs when, in fact, they’re being trapped into sex trafficking?

RAJ: Yes, there have been some cases and some of them have returned to the village. In the past, people would talk about girls coming back from Bombay with gold and jewelry and they would gain recognition because of their wealth. Back then, the villagers were not aware of the diseases that accompanied that line of work.

DUNHAM: Did the girls go to Bombay knowingly or unknowingly?

RAJ: Some were sold unknowingly and some of them went fully aware of what they were doing. In those days, if a house had a tin roof, you knew without asking that some girl connected to that house was working in Bombay.

DUNHAM: Has the trend to go to Bombay now stopped?

RAJ: It has been reduced significantly. There may be a few isolated incidents, but I hear that there are organizations along the border that stop the girls from crossing into India and continuing on to Bombay.

DUNHAM: Have any of the women who returned to your village from India come back with AIDS?

RAJ: One girl died two years after she returned from Bombay; I don’t know for sure but everyone in the village believed that she died from AIDS.

DUNHAM: So the younger girls in your village are now more aware of the dangers inherent in the sex trade?

RAJ: Yes, there is more awareness. They have been warned about being lured into fake jobs. Even the uneducated girls in the village are wary of people coming in and offering big dreams to them – great jobs, marriage, big houses, rich life. They will reject those offers. They suspect that they will be sold. And our district, Nuwakot, used to be famous for being the number one district in which girls were being sold into prostitution. Now there are programs organized in our district specifically designed for making girls aware of sex trafficking.

DUNHAM: If you had the chance to make a lot of money here in Nepal, would you forget about leaving the country?

RAJ: If I had such an opportunity here in Nepal, I would stay here in Nepal. This is my country. This is where I was born. I would stay in Nepal.

DUNHAM: Last question: If a young guy came up to you today and said to you, “Raj, you’ve been in Iraq; should I go to Iraq and serve the American forces?” how would you respond?

RAJ: The promise of getting work in Iraq at an American base is never guaranteed. The Nepali might end up inside a base … or he might end up outside the base. And outside the base is terrible for Nepali workers. They could end up in Baghdad. They could end up in Tikrit, Mosul. Even in Baghdad, they could end up in the red zone. Or they could end up in the green zone. What I’m trying to say is that, in the end, it depends on each worker’s luck. If a guy told me that he wanted to go to Iraq just to make money, I would advise him not to go.

DUNHAM: You were one of the lucky ones?

RAJ: Yes.

……………………………………………………..

Update on Girl Trafficking in Nepal

December 7, 2008






“For the last decade it has been estimated that 6,000 - 7,000 girls are trafficked out of Nepal each year. But these numbers have recently risen substantially. Current numbers for girls trafficked out of the country are now 10,000 to 15,000 yearly. This is compounded as the US Central Intelligence Agency states that most trafficked girls are currently worth, in their span as a sex-worker, approx $250,000 (USD) on the sex-trades market.” from Lost Daughters – An ongoing tragedy in Nepal, an article co-written by KAMALA SARUP and LYS ANZIA of Women News Network (WNN) a non-profit media news network that brings in-depth international women’s news seldom covered by the current public media stream.

I’m recommending this article to those who are interested in the ongoing girl-trafficking crisis in Nepal. The sad fact is that nearly a quarter of a million Nepali girls have been reduced to the status of  “sex products for sale.” India, China, Eastern Europe, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other mid-Eastern regions are the leading countries that exploit Nepali girls in the sex-trafficking industry. And once imprisoned in brothels, which can last for years, the young women not only face brutality on a daily basis, but are at a very high risk for AIDS. According to a 2004 World Bank report, to give but one example, it’s estimated that 50 % of Nepalese sex workers in Mumbai brothels are HIV positive.

But not all Nepali girls, forced into prostitution, are exported to foreign countries. On the matter of domestic trafficking, the article cites my 2007 interview with Dr. Arzu Rana Deuba, Executive Chairperson of Samanata Institute for Social and Gender Equality in Kathmandu:

“Controlling trafficking has been compounded by the conflict of the last ten years. The communities [in Nepal] became poorer and some of them had no recourse but to try to find a means for a livelihood. During and after the conflict, there was a lot of displacement, a lot of women came to the urban centers, and most were not equipped to get into jobs. They were not educated -- no skills. So a lot of them became ‘dancers’, you know? So now, it’s like a phenomenon. Every town you go to, you have all these dance bars. It’s just a front for brothels.”

For the complete article, including an eight minute video:
Lost Daughters -- An Ongoing Tragedy in Nepal

For my interview with Dr. Arzu Rana Deuba:
Mikel Dunham talks with Dr. Arzu Rana Deuba

For more information on Women News Network:
Women News Network Home Page

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Women in Nepal update: Interview with DS Police Chief Gita Upreti

October 14, 2008


Historically, Nepal’s legal system has been a hybrid of Hindu law and English common law. The Muluki Ain, derived from patriarchal Hindu caste law and custom, has served as a general code of civil and criminal law and procedure, applicable to all Nepalis regardless of religion or ethnicity: property, inheritance, adoption, marriage, divorce, homicide, rape, incest, and many other subjects were covered by the Muluki Ain. However, when formal law – a particular statute or the constitution – has come in conflict with the Muluki Ain, formal law generally takes precedence. As a result, in the last half-century, women’s rights have improved in Nepal, although far from what the Western world would characterized as gender equality.

Nowhere is this more evident than in women’s health care. Nepal’s maternal mortality ratio, for instance, is about one in twenty-one women. Abortion-related deaths have been estimated to be as high as 4,000 per year. Less than half (47%) of births are assisted by trained health workers or traditional birth attendants. Fewer than one in five mothers receive postnatal care within the first two days after delivery. In all of the above cases, the risk-rates rise dramatically when addressing those women living outside the urban areas; the vast majority of women still live in remote agricultural settings.

 

Women’s health and reproductive rights cannot be fully understood without taking into account the legal and social status of women, which still reflect patriarchal attitudes harking back to centuries-old feudal values. As a rule, marriages are still arranged by the male head of a family. Even Prime Minister Prachanda, a leading proponent of progressive ideas toward women, orchestrated the selection of his three daughters’ grooms. On the grassroots level, men make life-changing decisions; women are expected to respect the men’s verdicts. In most cases, a woman has no identity other than the identity of her father and/or her husband. A woman’s difficulty in owning property and earning an independent income, her expected role as an obedient wife, her inferior level of education, and her vulnerability to violence continue to negatively affect her ability to make decisions about her physical, mental and economic well-being.

Below are a few salient points. (The figures quoted are a few years old; some numbers
have improved in favor of women’s rights since then.)
 
➢    Percentage of women employed as administrative and managerial workers: 9%.
➢    Percentage of women in the agricultural work force: 45%.
➢    Literacy rate among population aged 15 and older: 24% female, 60% male.
➢    Percentage of female-headed households: 13%.
➢    Fertility rate: 4.26 births per woman
➢    Percentage of pregnant women with anemia: 65%
➢    Infant mortality rate: 71 deaths per 1000 live births
➢    Contraceptive prevalence rates among married teenage women (aged 15-19): 4.4% (modern methods), 2.2% (traditional methods).
➢    Percentage of women landowners: 6%. 81% of these women own less than on hectare of land.
➢    Property laws: Women must obtain the consent of her father and mother if she is unmarried, or of her adult son or daughter if she is divorced or widowed, to dispose of more than half of any immovable property she receives in partition.
➢    Judicial interpretation of rape: limited to vaginal penetration. If a woman is raped against her will but does not resist the sexual advances of the rapist, the act does not amount to rape. All cases of rape must be reported within 35 days from the date of the incident in order to be heard in court.
➢    Incest: Sexual relations with one’s sister or daughter are punishable with ten years’ imprisonment. However, the Muluki Ain code provides that marriages can be solemnized between near relations if such customs persist in the particular community.
➢    Domestic violence: Although crimes of murder and attempted murder may be tried, physical assault is not considered a crime for which the state can be a prosecuting party. In physical assault cases, the female victim must bring a private suit through a hired attorney; this distinction prevents the police from filing or investigating many forms of domestic violence.
➢    Sexual harassment: There is no specific law addressing sexual harassment in the workplace.
➢    Sex trafficking: Although many cases go unreported, approximately 6,000-7,000 girls and young women are trafficked annually, many of whom disappear into Indian and Gulf State brothels. 60,000 Nepalese girls under the age of 18 are known to be working as commercial sex workers in India, many against their will.
➢    Customary forms of violence: Deuki, badi, dowry related violence and witchcraft still exist in Nepal. Deuki and badi are both accepted forms of prostitution. Deuki is the practice of placing young girls in temples and offering them to the gods; when the girls grow up, they are forced to become prostitutes. Badi is the practice of an ethnic group of the same name, whereby young women are trained to become prostitutes. Allegations of being a witch have led women to suffer humiliation, severe forms of violence and even death.



Still, in the last ten years, the government has established a number of institutions and policies designed to address women’s issues. Most notably, the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, created in 1995 following the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, is the lead agency charged with the task of fulfilling Nepal’s national and international obligations on gender equality. NGOs and activists have also played an important role, particularly in fighting legal discrimination against women.

For more information about sex trafficking, read my interview with Dr Arzu Rana Deuba, one of Nepal’s most prominent women, now holding a seat in the Constituent Assembly.

Click here for Dunham's interview with Dr. Deuba

 
Another revealing interview on women’s issues is my interview with Ram Kumari Jhakri, who only last week was named the first female president of the ANNFSU, one of the nation’s largest student unions. "For the first time in the history of ANNFSU, we have the most inclusive central committee with 33 per cent women elected in the 121-member body," Jhakri said last week.
Click here for Dunham's interview with Ram Kumari Jhakri

Both women have demonstrated consummate skill in working through the male-dominated political process in Nepal.

But today’s interview is with a woman who, with no political motivation or power, has proven her worth as an independent woman of the New Nepal – an unsung role model for the younger female population. Her name is Gita Upreti, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) of Gorkha – the only woman to hold this position in all of the 75 districts in Nepal.

I conducted this interview in her office in Gorkha three weeks ago.

GITA UPRETI: I was born in the farming village of Kharanitar in Nuwakot District. It is a district adjoining Kathmandu. I went to primary and secondary school there. We were seven sisters and my father was a farmer. I’m the fifth daughter and we don’t have any brothers. We daughters mostly left the village, but my second oldest sister is still there taking care of the house and everything.

MD: When you were a girl were females encouraged to go to school?

GITA: No. But my father sent all of his daughters to school. He was a social worker and a kind of activist. Prior to that, there were very few girls who attended school in my village.

MD: What years are we talking about?

GITA: From 1963 to 1970, I was in primary.

MD: What was your father’s political affiliation?

GITA: Nepali Congress. He was one of the district leaders. At that time, there was no local high school, so my father sent my two oldest sisters to Kathmandu for a higher education. He was very proud of the fact, even though it was a financial and social sacrifice. There was a risk involved, sending daughters away to school. From the cultural point of view, my father took that risk by sending them to the city. By the time I was finished with primary school, a high school had been built in our village, so I attended there. Then, after getting my SLC degree [tenth grade equivalent], my father enrolled me in Padma Kanya College, in Kathmandu. Padma Kanya College is the oldest women’s college -- I think it opened in the 1950s. I studied and graduated in Humanities and Social Science with a degree in Batchelor of Arts in Economics and Culture.

MD: Is that where you learned English?

GITA: Yes. Our courses in college used a lot of English books. That helped me to improve my English.

MD: What were your aspirations after completing college?

GITA: After moving to Kathmandu, I realized that I would need to find a job so that I could support myself. And stand up for myself. The city itself motivated me. The city encouraged me to do something. I wanted to establish a personal identity. And my parents encouraged that way of thinking. My father said, “You need to do something for society and for yourself. Only then will you be recognized in society as your own person.” And my mother told me, “You are not only my daughter, but a member of society who will doing something worthwhile.” She is still alive and still encourages all my sisters and me.

MD: Your parents were very progressive for the time. They must have been criticized.

GITA: Oh, yes. For my family, in our small village, it was very hard not having a son. Because all the villagers used to say “Who’s going to take care of you [the parents] and your property when you get old? But my father always said, “I will give my property to a trust. I will not give anything to anybody. I’m not giving anybody even a single penny.”

MD: The village people thought daughters should be married, not educated?

GITA: Yes. But in truth, when the girls did get married, they would have no future at all. Also, my father always encouraged me to participate in sports. I was an athlete. In my district, I was one of the top five players. I competed in high jump, long jump and long distant running and shorter races.

MD: Did you see any of the Olympics? In America, all we saw was women’s volleyball.

GITA: Ah it was very interesting! I watched that program, you know? Really interesting. I was really happy with that. When the women competitions were shown, I was very much interested. Even the women’s swimming competitions. It was amazing.

MD: Getting back to your youth, what year did you graduate from college?

GITA: 1986. The times were rapidly changing. The paradigm was shifting and I saw a lot of that shifting. In political, cultural and economic terms, I saw a lot of changes in our society in Nepal. For the youth, politics was mostly limited to the Student Union. No violence. There was the political movement called Shatya Graha (“reveal the truth”) a non-violence movement created by Gandhi: protesting and marching, but no violence.

MD: What were they protesting?

GITA: The Panchayat System of the Shah regime. The king suppressed the Shatya Graha.
 [Note: The Panchayat System was basically a one-party system, designed to serve the absolute power that King Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah had usurped from the people in 1960. Under this system, the king controlled all three branches of the government – executive, legislative and judiciary – plus the military and civil service. The Panchayat system was overthrown in early 1990 through the People’s Movement, Jana Andolan.]

MD: When did you join the police?

GITA: After college. There were very few women in the police force at that time. You could count them on one hand. That was the beginning of my career.

MD: You were breaking all the rules in Nepal’s society. How were you treated?

GITA: It was very unusual for the people to see a woman in a police uniform. When we passed down the road all the guys would stare at us. They use to talk to each other and joke about having a woman in uniform. It was shocking particularly for that society to see women in uniform. It happened in Kathmandu where modern people lived. I was surprised because they were far more sophisticated than the village people.

MD: Was it the fact that you were wearing trousers?

GITA: That uniform was similar to the one I’m wearing now. It was not accepted. People wondered if we would be able to provide quality service. They doubted a woman’s abilities.

MD: Within the force, how did the men treat you?

GITA: There were two aspects of acceptance: One was within the police force and one was outside, within society. Both groups doubted our abilities.

MD: Did it remain like that as you rose up through the ranks? Were you pushed harder because you were a woman or were you treated equally by the police force?

GITA: In terms of women being given responsibilities, the police force didn’t trust our abilities. They wanted to show society that they had hired women and they could do anything, but in reality, the police force was not giving us the responsibility that would prove that we could do anything.

MD: They didn’t want to take a chance on you?

GITA: That’s right. After a long, long time I was given the opportunity to be become District Chief of Gorkha. They should have given this to me earlier. My male peers got the same promotion much earlier in their careers. The leaders are still hesitant to give women positions of higher responsibility and opportunity.

MD: How many district chiefs are women?

GITA: I’m the only one. In the 75 districts, I’m the only one.

MD: Has the situation improved now, when younger women enter the police force?

GITA: Yes. For one thing there are a lot more women coming in. But there are no special arrangements made for the needs of the women in the police force. You have to go through the same process as the men. There is no priority at all. Now, the people are talking about “inclusion”. Where is the inclusion for us? Where is the litigation, the law that talks about real inclusion for women?

MD: How did you personally break through the bias? Women in the US are running for president. Hillary Rodham Clinton came very close to winning the Democratic nomination. There’s much talk about cracking the glass ceiling in the west. You seemed to have done some glass-cracking right here.

GITA: I was always a Clinton supporter! I always watched her interviews and thought how impressive she was. When the German Chancellor election took place, I monitored the election very closely. Any event that brings women to the foreground, with real power, not only on the grass root level, but at the top…we need to bring women into the decision-making levels. If the government wants to hire more women in the police, they should develop an inclusive system based on sex, caste, religion and so on.

MD: And right now they don’t have that?

GITA: Right now we don’t have that particular system. And that should be implemented as early as possible.

MD: Do you think the new government, led by the Maoists are stepping in the right direction? Do you think they will be more inclusive?

GITA: I hope so. I hope there will be some change from the grass root level up. There has to be specific criteria, special protection and inclusion to bring more women into the police force. We have 57,000 personnel in the police force, nation-wide. Within that group there are only 2000 women in the force.

MD: Are they all in the lower ranks?

GITA: Yes.

MD: What do you think about the Constituent Assembly? Are they serious about the inclusion of women?

GITA: They have to address women’s issues; otherwise there will be no change. We are talking about the new Nepal. I do think the new government is very serious about this issue.

MD: You have a son. What has it been like to have a career and try to balance having a family at the same time?

GITA: It’s very difficult. Even though you must run the office, you must also pay attention to the family, which is the most important part of life. I wanted to have additional children, but I couldn’t because I couldn’t give up the time necessary to raise additional children. I was conscious about this so I stopped at one child.

MD: What is the system in the police force for female officers who become pregnant? Do they get leave time?

GITA: We get sixty days leave during and after the birth. Not before that. Before that, you can arrange to take home leave and other leaves, if necessary. After the two months, you must be prepared to return to work.  But it’s not enough time, really. And the facilities provided for the policewomen are not adequate. That is a very hard ceiling for us to break through.

We women provide quality service. We can work as a man can work. But at the same time we have other challenges. Sometimes, it’s very hard to coordinate with the men. For example, someone from an international organization called me here at my office in the Gorkha District Police Office, and he was looking for the DSP. I told him many times, “I am the DSP.” Again and again, he said, “Madam, I am looking for the DSP,” meaning, I am looking for the male voice. Finally, I said, “Sir, please be prepared. At this office, the DSP is a woman. Please keep this in mind.” A half-hour later, he called me again and he apologized saying that he thought the previous DSP, who was a male, was still running Gorkha. The whole event was funny for both him and me. Sometimes you are just automatically unacceptable in the hierarchy, if you are a woman.

The men think, “How do I deal with that woman?” [laughs]. That’s where the real problem lies. Not every time, but sometimes I can tell that a man is not looking at me as the DSP, but as a woman, and they can’t get beyond that. That’s the challenge for us women. You have to first prove that you can do a particular job and finish the task. Then they may trust you. But often you are not even given the chance to do a particular job because the men are preconditioned to doubt your abilities.

On the other hand, if a man has a position, and even if he is not performing to the standards demanded for his position, he is given the benefit of the doubt. He is trusted. If he fails in a task, they will say, “Sometimes a man makes a mistake.” If a woman makes a mistake, she is used as an example of why women should not have authority in the first place. They will say, “What do you expect? She’s a woman. I told you so.”

Patriarchal ideology is blocking women officers’ ability to go further. But it’s the same mentality everywhere. It’s the same at home, when men are looking at you. Or in the office. This is a problem throughout Nepal

MD: Another problem in Nepal, relating to women, is the sex trade: abductions of girls. Nepal has a tragic number of girls that are trafficked each year.

GITA: Yes, yes. I used to be in charge at the headquarters of the Women and Children Service Center in Kathmandu. I have lots of experience – twelve years -- working with women and children issues. It was in Kathmandu as well as outside the Kathmandu valley. I was traveling all over the country. At that time, my job was to train women police officers and work as an investigator on women’s cases and trafficking prevention. In fact, I helped found the Women and Children Service Center. It was established in 1996. Before that, I used to work in a police section that oversaw anti-trafficking. We would go from village to village, door to door, with programs that warned the locals about the dangers of trafficking and the luring of innocent girls from their homes. We were providing information for both parents and girls: How you can recognize the pimps. How the girls can be lured, then abused by the pimps. What kind of false promises the pimps will give. It was an awareness-raising campaign: We were telling parents that, even if the guys were promising marriage, don’t believe them. Those districts that were particularly poor, like Chitwan and Darding—we focused on them.: all the southern districts along the border of India.

As for actual cases of trafficking, the Women and Children Service Center helped in the investigation process. In the beginning there were four centers: Kathmandu, Lalipur, Kaski and Morang. And I headed up the office in Kathmandu. Girls came into Kathmandu from small villages, not knowing what trouble they were about to get into. And we realized that what these girls needed was a women-friendly atmosphere where they could talk about their problems.

Also we established many small units along the Indian border where women would stop young girls attempting to cross and ask them where they were going and who they were with. It was intervention, but it also helped us to identify pimps. Sometimes we worked hand in hand with other organizations like Maiti Nepal. In fact, at that time, both our center and Maiti Nepal were in the initial phases, so we were beneficial to each other.

And now we have ex-sex-workers who work at the borders – women who know what’s going on – who intervene with innocent girls and identify traffickers, so that we, the police, can arrest them. This network between the police and women’s organizations continues to grow. And we need that growth because the Nepali border is so porous. We have sectors that are controlled but we can’t possible seal off the entire border.

MD: From a judicial standpoint, what laws are in place to punish traffickers apprehended in Nepal?

GITA: Based on the severity of the crime, traffickers will be imprisoned from five to twenty years. At this time 42% of the traffickers tried in court go on to serve time in prison. The percentage is improving because of our improved ability to get women to come forward with evidence.

Women are hesitant to talk to male police. But what has happened is, with the advent of the Women and Children Center, we have women who are trained in counseling, who are sensitized and are, at the same time, well trained in investigative techniques. That is making a big difference. The victims find it much easier to speak to women police, to talk about the ugly details, what happened to them after they were abducted and mistreated. Now, violated women are coming forward and registering complaints. In front of male police, it’s too hard to talk. Men don’t understand as well how painful and traumatic the sex-worker experience really is to women, and sometimes men even suspect that it was the girl’s fault for being lured by the pimps.

MD: You said earlier that of 56,000 police officers, only 2000 are women. How many of these women are being properly trained for sex trafficking victims.

GITA: Very few. 195 women officers are trained and delegated to do this kind of work. There needs to be a lot more trained women posted to the centers. And more funds need to be made available. For example, there is no budget for printing brochures about our work. The budget covers salaries -- that’s it.

MD: What about domestic abuse in Nepal? Are the police improving their ability to address spousal abuse and rape?

GITA: The Women and Children Service Center has also worked in this area and with good results.

But when we first began working with domestic violence, people said, “What the hell are you doing?! It’s not a matter for the police. It’s not a crime!” They were so much intimidated! They regarded domestic violence as a private issue, not a social concern. What went on in a family’s house was not an affair for the police to poking their noses into.

In the beginning, very few abused women came to the center and, when they did, they were very shy and quiet, not sure what to do. They would only talk if they were taken to a separate room where no one could hear what they wanted to report. So I would tell them, “You can tell me whatever you want. There is nothing you can’t tell me about what has happened – both inside and outside. You are safe here.”

But it was hard to convince the victims at first. Again, I was fighting two kinds of resistance: resistance from within the police system itself and resistance from outside society.

Within the system, they told me that my job was to address the sex trade, rape and other matters, but not domestic violence. And I argued that domestic violence was one of the biggest problems for women in our society. And fortunately my supervisor was very supportive of my ideas. He said, “Go ahead!” I was so happy. And day by day, the number of women coming in increased. Now there are more than a thousand cases reported each year. Now women are beginning to feel that they have access to justice. We also coordinate with other organizations to support our efforts. Violence against women is not a simple problem. We have to deal in a package. These cases can’t be dealt with in isolation, with only the police involved. We need a lot of outside support: medical, moral, financial, legal support.

MD: You mention medical support. Many of the girls who have been forced into the sex industry contract AIDS. What happens to these women after they come to you?

GITA: The center does not provide any direct medical aid to these girls. They are referred to other organizations for that, including shelter. The center does the investigation, takes down the facts, identifies what specific needs the women have in regard to their present condition, and then we provide the women with the connections to the other support groups that are relevant to her condition.

MD: What about sending ex-sex-workers back to their home villages? Can’t this add to their problems?

GITA: Yes. Organizations that advocate reestablishing them with their families…in my opinion, it is not a good idea. What I’ve seen is that girls who are sent back to their villages, there is always a matter of social stigma. Villagers will point at her. She will feel unsafe. She can never really return to her home because she will only be identified as a girl who was trafficked. And the social stigma will also affect her family as well. They, too, will be stigmatized. The community can make it impossible for the girls to integrate. They can be very cruel.

I can give you one example that has taken place in this district, in Gorkha. There were cases of wives who were infected by the AIDS virus. But they were not prostitutes. Their husbands infected them. But the women were still stigmatized. And their families refused to support them. Their own relatives threw them out. You see how hard it is for victimized women to remain in their communities, once the word it out?

MD: What are the alternatives? Are you advocating that they be rehabilitated in an urban environment?

GITA: Yes, and then give them livelihood training. Give them skills so that they can provide for themselves.

MD: What about the drug issue? Have a lot of the Nepali girls become addicted to drugs through their pimps?

GITA: It’s recognized as a growing problem, you could say that.

MD: Getting back to you and your career: How hard has it been to rise through the ranks of the police force.

GITA: It’s been a really challenging job. Women in a police uniform must always stay on the right track. We are always being watched, our every move scrutinized, monitored. Even the most basic daily activities are monitored.

Sometimes, you don’t have a personal life, you know? But people often have a hard time separating the personal from the professional life.  It’s so difficult.

After I was posted as DSP in Gorkha, women’s groups came to see me here in the office. They were so curious. “What does she look like? How will she treat us? ” [laughs] But later, they came to the conclusion that this was their office as well, that they could come here with their problems. They said, “She’s a woman. We can call her anytime we like. Even at night, we can call if we have a problem.” There isn’t any male police officer that they would dare to call at midnight! But I get those calls at midnight. And they are now happy.

But at the same time, I am the DSP of Gorkha, which means that I must protect all the people of the district, not just one group. And because I am a woman, I must try always to be perfect. There is so much expectation for my failure. And I can’t always be perfect. So my job is always difficult. But you’ve got to cope with the reality. Within my organization there are people who ask the people outside the organization, “How is she doing?” I am constantly monitored. No room for mistakes because you will never be excused.

Whenever you talk about a female police officer, you end up talking or guessing about her personal life. If you talk about a male police officer, you talk about his professional record. You see the difference? It’s undermining and very hard to address. When I talk to officers under me, I tell them to know and respect the difference between when we are on duty and off duty. I can’t tolerate the merging of the two. It’s not professional.

And if you are talking about the police force: don’t just promote women, give them the responsibility that goes with the promotion. That is an issue that has to be evaluated. If we are given a promotion, we expect added responsibility. Otherwise the promotion is empty. 

One more thing:

We are talking about social inclusion. This is the time for the inclusion of women to be realized in the Constituent Assembly. There are more women in the Constituent Assembly than in any other previous governmental group. But my question is how much difference these women will make? My question is if these women are really representing us, or are they there just to be a showpiece. They must step forward and really make a difference on the issue of women. I will make the evaluation, for my own personal satisfaction. And I will advocate for more equal rights for women. We didn’t vote for women to have seats in the Constituent Assembly, just so we could promote their careers. We voted for them so that they would help us.

 

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WATCH THIS: New Documentary with hidden camera in Tibet

August 12, 2008

An extraordinary opportunity has been given to us. A filmmaker, who wishes to remain anonymous, has just completed a 45 minute film shot inside Tibet, Dharamsala and Nepal. It was shot over a three year period and it's the best documentary I've seen to date in addressing the complex situation of Tibetans. Much of the film -- including the Lhasan brothels and the presence of the Chinese military -- was shot with a hidden camera. Short on histrionics, dense in content, I strongly urge you to take the time to view this. There is some amazing archival footage as well as footage of the March 2008 riots in Lhasa. The film also features one of my most esteemed friends, Wangchuk Tsering, once the administrator for the Tibet Reception Center in Kathmandu.

“Recollecting Tibet”
Documentaries Memories: Chronicles from a camera: A perpetual History

To view the film, click on the link provided below, then click onto
Watch "Recollecting Tibet" Documentary Film

click here to watch film

For more information on the film and receiving a copy email Photophormations: K69hagakure@yahoo.co.uk

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On the impunity of violence against Nepali women

Interview with Devi Sunuwar
JANUARY 10,2008

Almost two years after the 2006 Peace Movement that forced the king to step down, Nepal continues to be plagued by a gross deficit in human rights protection. With few exceptions, civilian victims of the 10-year insurgency have yet to see justice served on rapists, extortionists, kidnappers and murderers who perpetrated their crimes under the guise of government forces and/or Maoist insurgents. According to Amnesty International -- although there is ample blame to spread around -- it was the arbitrary arrests, torture, forced disappearance and extra-judicial killings of individuals perpetrated by the military police and the Royal Army that were most egregious.

Nepali Girl Trafficking Increasing -- Interview with Dr. Arzu Rana Deuba

 September 30, 2007


In recent years, the estimate of the number of Nepali females being traffickSed each year to India (and beyond) was approximately 6,000-7,000. However, according to the latest report issued by the UN Regional Office for South Asia for Prevention of Drugs and Crimes--released last week--at least 10,000 to 15,000 girls are now trafficked from Nepal to the subcontinent. The office labels trafficking as the world’s fast-growing international organized crime.

Sex Trafficking in Nepal-2007

U.S. Department of State's Latest Assessment

Each year the State Department submits the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report to Congress. Each country is assessed on its previous year's record of prosecution, protection and prevention. It also examines the nation's efforts to rescue, rehabilitate and reintegrate victims of trafficking.

A country that fails to make significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons, per U.S. law receives a "Tier 3" assessment--"Tier 1" being given to the least egregious of countries. Currently, Nepal is classified as "Tier 2". Below is the State Department's analysis.

Nepal is a source country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and involuntary servitude.

NEPAL WATCH UPDATE: JULY 1, 2007

TERROR IN TERAI

So far this summer, separatist groups have been playing havoc in Terai—the southern part of Nepal adjoining the Indian border—strategically, Nepal’s “soft underbelly”. Strikes, armed robbery, killings and abductions have increased along the border in recent weeks. Because a series of strikes have been called by different splittist organizations, hundreds of supply-bearing trucks from India now remain stranded: The result is that there is an acute fuel scarcity gripping the nation. To compound matters, truck-drivers from ethnic minorities have instigated their own bandh (strike) in the south—demanding governmental security along the roads.

On Freeing Child Sex Slaves in Cambodia

Written for Tehelka Magazine, New Delhi.

The two of us were posing as American sex tourists in the middle of the Cambodian jungle, in a brothel called "Hollywood". Sitting next to us--eyeing the prostitutes and sipping beer provided by the pimps--were Chinese, Japanese and European businessmen, mostly middle aged, in slacks and crisp-collared short-sleeve shirts. But there were also teenage guys: Aussie, Israeli and Scandinavian student-backpackers. What were they doing in this fuliginous sideshow? Was "Hollywood" just an add-on novelty to their daytime excursions to the nearby ruins of Angkor Wat? Surely, at their age and with their young good looks, hooking up with young women was  monetarily free and joyfully spontaneous.

The males patronizing "Hollywood" were not looking for joy or spontaneity.

Nor were they looking for women.

These guys, young and old, were shopping for girls--very young girls...