VIOLETA
SANTOS MOURA

A small Hindu shrine, adorned with led lights during nighttime, blends with a neon lit entertainment and sex tourism area in downtown Kathmandu, Nepal.

Famous both for its mountainous landscapes as well as its Hindu and Buddhist heritage sites, tourist families, foreign youth and trekkers populate Kathmandu’s streets oblivious to a parallel world of sex tourism that has made Kathmandu go from a family and outdoors oriented tourism to a much shadowy indoors industry.

Just meters from this shrine several singing and dance bars, karaoke bars, massage parlours, cheap hotels and tea lounges, function as fronts for brothels, serving mostly tourist clientele from Asian countries such as India, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia but also from Western countries.

N. dances for a mostly male crowd at a dance bar, one of the many that function as fronts for brothels in downtown Kathmandu, Nepal. Customers spend time with the dancer waitresses and can make arrangements with them or their managers to meet for sex after working hours. This is just one type of adult entertainment venues in the Nepalese capital’s tourist area among singing and karaoke bars, massage parlours, cheap hotels and tea lounges that function as fronts for brothels, serving mostly tourist clientele from Asian countries such as India, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia but also from Western countries.

In dance bars, dancer waitresses sit with customers between dance acts and may engage in sexual activity. This can include kissing, fondling or more direct sexual acts. Waitresses make their earnings by receiving commissions from the food and alcohol that customers purchase at inflated prices in exchange for their company.

One year prior, in May 2018, this same bar was raided by police and 12 underage girls were rescued. Most of the girls were from the most severely earthquake-affected districts in 2015, where 9000 people were killed and left large sections of the population injured, unemployed, homeless and in even deeper levels of destitution than before the disaster.

With the monthly earnings of a waitress equivalent to what a rural farmer makes in a year, the devastation the quake caused made it even easier to lure and trap women and girls, many underage, in hundreds of massage parlors, dance restaurants and bars in Kathmandu, which function as fronts for brothels, under false promises of jobs as common waitresses, dancers or a chance in show business.

Left: A dancer stands at the stage of a dance bar, one of the many functioning as fronts for brothels in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, where customers spend time with the dancers and waitresses and can make arrangements with them or their managers to meet for intercourse after working hours.

A Hindu majority country, Nepalis of lower casts such as the Dalit, also known as ‘untouchables’, oftentimes convert to Christianity in hopes of escaping the Nepalese Hindu social hierarchy that keeps them in the lowest strata of the social ladder.
But even after converting, stigma still accompanies them either because their original communities disregard their new religious affiliation and so continue to see them as belonging to subservient castas or because members of different religious minorities are also discriminated against in this Hindu majority country, albeit in a different way.
Extreme poverty and discrimination against lower castes has pushed women and girls belonging to these communities to desperately seek a better life, thus making them a prime target for human traffickers.

Left: A more senior dancer waitress [left] and a colleague [right] sit while another one dances for customers at a dance bar, one of the many that function as fronts for brothels in downtown Kathmandu, Nepal.

The promise of a job in bigger Nepalese cities, often lures destitute, gullible, often times already abused girls, to forced labour and sexual exploitation in dance bars and massage parlors serving a mostly foreign clientele.

While many in the entertainment sector try to avoid sex work, dancer bars, massage parlors and cabin restaurants are the go-to places to solicit sex. Workers have little protection against harassment and often are eventually forced into sex work by managers. Here traffickers can also lure girls into crossing the border to India with further promises of better employment, where it is likely they will end up in forced sex slavery rather than in the show business opportunity they were once again promised.

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Right: Advertisement signs targeted at tourists jostle for space on the corner of a busy street in downtown Kathmandu, Nepal.

The spa industry offering legitimate cosmetic treatments and therapeutic massages has been fighting hard to distance itself from the thousands of what are locally known as “sassage parlours” that function as fronts for brothels and that dot the Nepalese capital and the country’s major cities. The purpose of this type of ‘sassage’ parlors is to directly provide sex on the premises. Although the majority of parlors are in the business of commercial sex, a small number provides non-sexual therapeutic massages.

E., 20 y/o, poses for a portrait in the transit home of anti-trafficking NGO ‘3 Angels Nepal’, where she is staying after being rescued by the NGO’s monitors while attempting to cross the border through the Nepalese city of Bhairahawa to meet who is thought to be a trafficker who promised her a job in India.

Social media has made it easier for traffickers to groom, recruit and get victims to unknowingly traffic themselves into their encounter in bigger urban centers within Nepal or across the border in India without risking detection and arrest. It also allows traffickers to increase their chances by remotely grooming several potential victims at the same time.

According to NGO ‘3 Angels Nepal’, women and girls are trafficked from Nepal into India at a rate of more than 54 per day.

A 2019 report by the Nepal’s human rights commission states that “nearly 1,000 Nepali women and girls are annually rescued from India, where they are taken for sex trade, forced labour, housemaid” or as an intermediate stop before taking them further away to third countries”.

Some of the women and girls are recruited or lured with a promise of work and studies in India or overseas, where instead they are exploited and subjected to violence in conditions akin to slavery or end up being forced into sex work.

Left: People and goods move on trucks, buses, rickshaws, private vehicles and on foot between India and Nepal in the border city of Bhairahawa, Nepal.

The 1,758 km open border between Nepal and India, through which hundreds of thousands of nationals from both countries cross without needing passports or visas (children under 10 do not need documents), was already one of the busiest human trafficking gateways in the world. Since the 2015 earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people and severely disrupted social and economic structures in Nepal, it has been in overdrive.

This, along with an enormous porous, open border, has created a mammoth challenge for those fighting against human trafficking while, at the same time, resulting in human trafficking being very a lucrative and low-risk racket for traffickers.

Before the earthquake, 10,000–15,000 persons were trafficked
every year from Nepal to India for commercial sex and forced labour. Last year (2018), Indian Border Forces estimated that since 2013 human trafficking from Nepal to India rose by 500%. The explanation is believed to be the deadly earthquake that left large sections of the population injured, unemployed, homeless and in deeper levels of destitution, increasing the number of vulnerable and easy targets for human traffickers. 

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Right: E., 20 y/o, has been staying in the transit home of Nepalese anti-trafficking NGO ‘3 Angels Nepal’ where she receives counseling while her case is being assessed. She was rescued by the NGO’s monitors while attempting to cross the border through the Nepalese city of Bhairahawa to meet who is thought to be a trafficker who promised her a job in India.

NGO workers are trying to determine the best course of action in order to prevent her from becoming again a trafficker’s target by finding her employment or professional skills training while being monitored by social workers of the NGO.

Rehabilitation is done either during reintegration with the victim’s family, whenever possible and safe to do so, or in one of the shelters that ‘3 Angels Nepal’ runs in others cities for cases where reunion with the victim’s family is not possible. The latter seems to be E.’s case, who rejects the idea of going back to her family who, according to her, routinely use violence against her.

Just two years ago Maheshwori Nepali was answering questions to NGO workers as a suspected victim of human trafficking about to be sold by a well known man from her village who had offered her family to get her work across the border in India. Now she works on the other side as a border monitor trying to intercept and prevent other trafficking victims from being taken or lured into crossing to India through the border city of Bhairahawa, Nepal.

Maheshwori uses her own experience to identify potential victims. In her new job at ‘3 Angels Nepal’, the anti-trafficking NGO that rescued her, she looks out for girls too dressed up with new clothes, likely gifted as presents by grooming traffickers. This is usually done by traffickers so as to gain victims’ trust. Girls walking clumsily with new shoes, likely the first time wearing anything other than flip flops, is also a telling sign.

Girls from disadvantaged backgrounds, like herself, are the most vulnerable. Maheshwori hails from the Dalit community, also known as ‘untouchables’, the lowest caste in Hindu social hierarchy. Even though caste discrimination is officially outlawed in Nepal, it informally continues to influence all aspects of society. This has forced many people from lower castes to seek a different life away from home.

According to Nepalese Police information quoted in a Unicef Nepal report, from mid-2015 till mid 2016, 1630 women and children were rescued by the police alone in human trafficking check points at border areas. At the same time, anti-trafficking NGOs run their own monitoring booths along the border to cap the lack of official monitoring stations and work in coordinating with police in those cases where traffickers are also detected and when police intervention is necessary. The numbers of rescues presented by NGOs are much higher. According to the ‘3 Angels Nepal’, its several booths along the 1758km border stop an average of 12 girls from being trafficked every day and it maintains that interception is the most effective form of rescue.

Left: After ordering a passenger bus on its way to India to stop in the Nepalese border city of Bhairahawa, Maheshwori Nepali (center), a rescued trafficking victim turned anti-trafficking NGO worker, questions a couple (not seen) and checks their documents in an attempt to determine whether they are truly related or if this is a case of a trafficker travelling with his unsuspecting victim.

Local anti-trafficking NGO’s such as ‘3 Angels’, the charity Maheshwori works for after being rescued by the organization, set up small checkpoints along the border with India to intercept human trafficking situations. According to the NGO, its several booths along the 1758km border stop an average of 12 girls being trafficked every day and it maintains that interception is the most effective form of rescue.

According to Nepalese Police quoted by the Kathmandu Post “2,104 Nepali citizens potentially human trafficking victims were brought back from India-Nepal border last year whereas various NGOs figure shows that over 10,000 have been rescued from various border crossings after screening during the same time frame”.

However, amidst the gargantuan flow of people, the veracity of people’s stated motives to cross the border into India is difficult to determine, especially when traffickers — who can pose as lovers, family, employment agents among many other ruses — instruct victims to lie when stopped by border monitors when travelling with them or by themselves, believing they will be granted a chance at a better life across the border.

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Right: After ordering a passenger bus on its way to India to stop in the Nepalese border city of Bhairahawa, a rescued trafficking victim turned anti-trafficking NGO worker, writes down personal details and questions several women and girls whether their travel has been arranged by someone else to determine whether they are travellers with a safe plan or victims of trafficking.

Danu Thapa, 24 y/o, an anti-trafficking NGO border monitor, stops a rickshaw carrying a girl to India through the Nepalese border city of Bhairahawa in order to question her about the nature of her travel and whether it has been arranged by someone else to determine whether she is a regular traveller with a safe plan or a victim of trafficking.

One of the ways NGO monitors use to corroborate the statements given by women and girls is to call their families. Often traffickers are on the other side of the telephone line posing as a family member through the first phone number given by the victims to the NGO monitors. Because of this NGO workers ask for several numbers to cross check information. Regardless of the result, NGOs keep a record of those questioned with statements, descriptions and contacts.

It is estimated that at least 54 girls and women are trafficked every day from Nepal to India. Poverty is the most common cause. But lack of human rights protections, political instability, conflict, natural disasters, illiteracy and corruption catalyse the phenomena, making human trafficking a thriving business, worth $150 billion a year worldwide, and Nepal one of its most lucrative sources.

Left: Two anti-trafficking NGO border monitors (far left and far right), scan pedestrian flow at the border pass in the Nepalese city of Bhairahawa in order to try to intercept, rescue and prevent trafficking victims from crossing into India.

Anti-trafficking NGOs have mixed opinions on whether the border should remain completely open or that both countries should agree on more controls and migration restrictions. While combating human trafficking has proved to be an uphill battle, many also argue that emmigration is a right and freedom of movement is essential for the local border economies and for Nepal in general. Thousands of Nepalis do this route every day to work across the border in India.

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Right: A mural, on the border between India and Nepal, warns women travelers of the risks of trafficking, specifically that accompanying someone who promises a job or marriage across the border could, in reality, be a ruse intended to sell them. Bhairahawa, Nepal.

However, it might be difficult for almost half of Nepalese women (46,9%) to be able to read the message in the mural. According to the 2015 CIA’s World Factbookonly 53.1 percent of women in Nepal over 15 years old are literate while male literacy rate is 76.4%. High levels of illiteracy are also one of the contributing reasons why many become easy targets for traffickers. As a comparison with Nepal’s giant neighbors, the rate of literacy for women in India is 60.6% and in China 94.5%. Female literacy is highly important as the vast majorityof all human trafficking victims worldwide – some 71 per cent – are women and girls and one third are children.

Left: Two police officers (far left and far right) stand in the proximity of anti-trafficking NGO border monitors (center) with whom they coordinate efforts to prevent human trafficking from Nepal into India in the Nepalese border city of Bhairahawa.

According to Nepalese Police quoted by the Kathmandu Post “2,104 Nepali citizens potentially human trafficking victims were brought back from India-Nepal border last year whereas various NGOs figure shows that over 10,000 have been rescued from various border crossings after screening during the same time frame.” 

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Right: Police officers are seen at their station in the Nepalese border city of Bhairahawa. One of their tasks is to prevent human trafficking from Nepal into India by coordinating efforts with anti-trafficking NGO border monitors trying to identify and rescue possible victims before they cross into India.

The numbers of rescues presented by NGOs are much higher. According to anti-trafficking NGO ‘3 Angels Nepal’, its several booths along the 1758km border stop an average of 12 girls from being trafficked every day and it maintains that interception is the most effective form of rescue.

Photos, messages and descriptions of missing men, women and children, many thought to have been trafficked, fill up a board at the Nepal-India border police station in the Nepalese city of Bhairahawa.

A 2019 report by Nepal’s National Human Rights Commission confirms that missing children and adults are ending sold in human trafficking. According to police data, 13,678 people went missing in 2018 and only 47 percent of them were found later that year, concluding that most of those who are still missing might have been trafficked.

When it comes to children, between July 2016 and July 2017 alone, 2,772 children were reported missing. Research suggests that approximately 12,000 childrenare trafficked by strangers, neighbors and, sometimes knowingly or not, by desperate families to India every year mainly for sexual exploitation but also for work in fisheries, construction, domestic work, sweatshops, among many other forms of forced labor and exploitation including organ removal. The vast majority of all human trafficking victims worldwide – some 71 per cent – are women and girls and one third are children.

Once in India or overseas, it is very difficult for victims to escape their enslavers. They are usually held captive, do not know the language, cannot afford to travel home and in many cases are bonded by fabricated debt to their captors who keep the bigger part of the wages of their slavery and rape.

Left: Young female students eat at lunch break from school at a diner in an upscale neighborhood in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu.

Despite having lower levels of women literacy (53.1) than its neighbors India and China, 60.6% and 94.5% respectively, Nepal has shown significant progress in increasing literacy in general (for men and women) over the years. Nepal has seen an increase in general literacy from 20.6% in 1981 to 67.9% in 2018, growing at an average annual rate of 36.06%.

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Right: A girl (center in red) waits as a man (right) loads a basket on her back with sand at a construction site in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu.

It is a common sight in Nepal to see women, girls and children working in construction sites, brick manufacturing and other heavy and dangerous types of work.

Apart from generally heavy, unsafe, unregulated and unsupervised, construction jobs are rife with sexual abuse where the most vulnerable are oftentimes forced to perform sexual favors in order to receive their payment. This has led many to eventually consider sex work where at least they are not required to carry bricks apart from being sexually abused.

Poverty, lack of human rights protections, natural disaster, gender inequality, illiteracy and corruption have created an endless supply of potential human trafficking victims.

Two pairs of young girls, of contrasting socio economic backgrounds, are seen in the Patan Durbar Square, the temple compound of the city of Lalitpur, in the metropolitan area of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu.

Traditional gender roles make girls most vulnerable. They are generally considered of low status and a burden. Forced, arranged and child marriages, gender violence, lack of equal access to education, fleeing violent families, among many other reasons, have persisted.

Despite being an outlawed practice, families still often abide by the traditional practice of paying a dowry to get daughters married, who, once married, will leave their parental family and not contribute to support it, unlike boys. This is also a reason why families choose to invest in boys’ education rather than on girls’. Investing in boys’ future is seen as benefiting their parental families in the long run while girls’ families not only are required to pay a dowry but also their education is seen as not benefitting their parental families andas useless in their future role of working for their husband’s family.

According to the 2015 CIA’s World Factbook only 53.1 percent of women in Nepal over 15 years old are literate while male literacy rate is 76.4%. High levels of illiteracy are also one of the contributing reasons many become easy targets for traffickers. As a comparison with Nepal’s giant neighbors, the rate of literacy for women in India is 60.6% and in China 94.5%.

Female literacy is highly important as the vast majority of all human trafficking victims worldwide – some 71 per cent – are women and girls and one third are children. 

Left: T., a 30 years old sexual trafficking survivor, poses for a portrait in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu where she now participates in community awareness actions with other survivors fighting against the trafficking of women from Nepal.

T. was systematically raped, abused and enslaved in Kuwait, where she hoped she was going to work as a domestic worker for a family. Instead, the male family members kept her captive to be raped by them and their guests at parties.

T. asked that her identity not be disclosed, as trafficking survivors are still considered by the general Nepalese society to be sex workers — seen as a disonourable occupation in Nepal — regardless of the fact they were forced into it. In most cases they are cast out from communities and ostracized by families after being rescued.

Being a deeply patriarchal society, most in Nepal consider marriage to be the most accepted, reliable and desired social reintegration mechanism. Because of this some survivors end up hiding their past and HIV status from future spouses.

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Right: T., a sexual trafficking survivor, who asked that her identity not be disclosed, uncovers her leg at a house in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu to show the scars from injuries she suffered during systematic rape, abuse and enslavement she suffered in Kuwait, where she thought she was going to work as a domestic maid for a family. Instead the family kept her captive to be raped by the men of the family and their guests at parties.

T. asked that her identity not be disclosed, as trafficking survivors are highly stigmatized and still considered by the general Nepalese society to be sex workers — seen as a disonourable occupation in Nepal — regardless of the fact they were forced into it. In most cases they are cast out from communities and ostracized by families after being rescued.

Being a deeply patriarchal society, most in Nepal consider marriage to be the most accepted, reliable and desired social reintegration mechanism. Because of this some survivors end up hiding their past and HIV status from future spouses and live in fear that their ordeal might be discovered.

In the aftermath of numerous and gruesome reports of abuse by Gulf employers, Nepal set strict screening procedures in its international airport in Kathmandu for women intending to travel to Gulf countries for work. Despite this, trafficking to Gulf countries has not subsided. Instead it adapted. Instead of directly flying there from Kathmandu, thousands of illiterate Nepalese women are now taken to Gulf countries through India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Other women are still being trafficked through Nepal’s international airport without being questioned by authorities. This has led to suspicions that Nepalese immigration officials may be involved in the trafficking of women to the Gulf. 

Sunita Danwuar (right), 41 yo, covers the face of T. (left), 30 yo, like her, another sexual trafficking survivor, for a portrait while sitting at the Danwuar’s home in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu.

The two women have been a source of support to each other and to other many sexual trafficking survivors in Nepal.

After surviving rape, abuse and enslavement in Kuwait, T. now collaborates with Danwar, another survivor, spearheading the fight against the trafficking of women from Nepal.

At 14 yo, Sunita Danwar was drugged and kidnapped from her poverty stricken family by travelling men and subsequently sold to Indian brothels where she was raped by dozens of brothel customers every day in Mumbai. According to her, among them were Indian army soldiers, police, businessmen and foreigners. Four years later a random police raid allowed her to be rescued. Almost 500 girls and women were rescued during the raid. Among them there were almost 200 Nepalese girls and women, including Sunita.

Abject poverty had forced her family to travel in search of livelihood by collecting and selling river pebbles. They were also searching for one of Sunita’s brothers who had disappeared years before Sunita’s kidnapping. Prior to her disappearance two other siblings of hers had already died due to poverty and malnutrition.

After her rescue, Sunita tracked down relatives only to find out that her grief stricken mother had died a few years after her kidnapping and that her father commited suicide after that.

In the aftermath of her rescue, coping with trauma, faced with lack of any institutional responses and facing immense social stigma for having been trafficked, Sunita and fourteen of the survivors decided to unite and founded an organization, Shakti Samuha (“Group of Power,” in Hindi), to provide shelter, counseling and reintegration to trafficking survivors. According to the organization’s numbers, the group has helped more than 20,000 women like T.

Left: A poster in the international terminal of the airport of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu advises Nepalese emigrants pursuing jobs abroad to make sure they are not being deceived by human traffickers posing as employment agents legitimate.

However, it might be difficult for almost half of Nepalese women (46,9%) to be able to read the message on the poster. According to the 2015 CIA’s World Factbook only 53.1 percent of women in Nepal over 15 years old are literate while male literacy rate is 76.4%. High levels of illiteracy are also one of the contributing reasons many become easy targets for traffickers. As a comparison with Nepal’s giant neighbors, the rate of literacy for women in India is 60.6% and in China 94.5%.

Nepal’s Human Rights Commision estimated that nearly 35,000 Nepali citizens—15,000 men, 15,000 women and 5,000 children—were trafficked in 2018. 

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Right: A coffin carrying the body of a 19 y/o Nepalese worker, killed in a work accident in Qatar, is carried by airport staff and escorted by his uncle (far left) following his arrival from Qatar at Kathmandu’s international airport terminal.

This has become an all too familiar scene at the Tribhuvan airport since around 1,000 Nepalese die in labour destination countries each year. Nearly every day at least one coffin arrives at the airport from Malayasia and Gulf countries carrying the bodies of Nepalese workers victims of work accidents, exhaustion and suicide. These countries also receive the bulk of labour migrants from Nepal, where post-mortems are not carried out and instead the deaths are attributed to 'natural causes'.

Reports had been rife with cases of slavery, violence, sexual abuse and inhuman working conditions as well as documents and mobile phones withheld by employers/captors in the Gulf. Also numerous were the cases where they were seldom paid what was promised for their work or not paid at all.

Nepal, where it is estimated 20 percent of Nepal’s population of almost 29 million people are migrant workers, is a world supplier of workers to such an extent that it is also the country where remittances from citizens abroad represent the biggest percentage of all economic output (as measured by gross domestic product, or GDP), fueling almost a third — 31.3% — of the country’s GDP.

A coffin carrying the body of a 19 y/o Nepalese worker, killed in a work accident in Qatar, is placed on a truck to be taken to his family’s village, following his arrival from Qatar at Kathmandu’s international airport terminal in Nepal.

This has become an all too familiar scene at the Tribhuvan airport since around 1,000 Nepalese die in labour destination countries each year. Nearly every day at least one coffin arrives at the airport from Malayasia and Gulf countries carrying the bodies of Nepalese workers victims of work accidents, exhaustion and suicide. These countries also receive the bulk of labour migrants from Nepal, where post-mortems are not carried out and instead the deaths are attributed to 'natural causes'.

Reports had been rife with cases of slavery, violence, sexual abuse and inhuman working conditions as well as documents and mobile phones withheld by employers/captors in the Gulf. Also numerous were the cases where they were seldom paid what was promised for their work or not paid at all.

Nepal, where it is estimated 20 percent of Nepal’s population of almost 29 million people are migrant workers, is a world supplier of workers to such an extent that it is also the country where remittances from citizens abroad represent the biggest percentage of all economic output (as measured by gross domestic product, or GDP), fueling almost a third — 31.3% — of the country’s GDP. 

Left: S. is a 23 y/o Nepalese sexual trafficking survivor living in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. Hailing from the lowest caste in Hinduism, Nepal’s main and largest religion where Dalits are kept at the lowest strata in Hindu social hierarchy, S.’s destitute family was severely discriminated against and suffered from hunger. This made S. desperate enough to follow a neighbour to India, who had promised her a job in a clothes shop. Instead, when S. got there, the 13 year old was sold to a brothel and raped for six months until escaping and being repatriated back to Nepal.

Traditional gender roles also make girls more vulnerable and prime targets.

Girls are generally considered of low status and a burden. Forced, arranged and child marriages, gender violence, lack of equal access to education, fleeing violent families, among many other reasons, have persisted and made them ideal targets for exploitation and trafficking.

Despite being an outlawed practice, all too often families abide by the traditional practice of paying a dowry to get daughters married off, who, once married, will leave their parental family and not contribute to support it, unlike boys who remain with their parental families after marriage. This is also a reason why families prioritize investing in boys’ education rather than on girls’. Investing in boys’ futures is seen as benefiting their parental families in the long run. Girls’ families, for their part, not only are required to pay a dowry to have them married but also their education is seen as not benefitting their parental families in the long run and as useless in their future role of domestic servant in their husband’s family house.

These compounded factors make girls extremely vulnerable to trafficking.

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Right: Words written by survivors of sexual trafficking are displayed at the office and shelter of anti-human trafficking NGO Shakti Samuha for survivors in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu.

US Attorney General Xavier Becerra provides a comprehensive explanation of what trafficking in humans is: “Human trafficking, also known as trafficking in persons or modern-day slavery, is a crime that involves compelling or coercing a person to provide labor or services, or to engage in commercial sex acts. The coercion can be subtle or overt, physical or psychological, and may involve the use of violence, threats, lies, or debt bondage. Exploitation of a minor for commercial sex is human trafficking, regardless of whether any form of force, fraud, or coercion was used. Human trafficking does not require travel or transportation of the victim across local, state, or international borders”.

UN’s International Labour Organization warns that there are more than 40 million

enslaved people worldwide, more than at any time in history. The vast majority

of all human trafficking victims – some 71 per cent – are women and girls and one third are children. 

Left: Posters on a wall downtown in Nepal's capital Kathmandu advertise an event. One of the decoys used by traffickers to lure potential victims is to pose as entertainment scouts in search of girls to work as extras or as dancers in movies and other types of show business events in Nepal and in India. Another tactic is to convince girls to work in dance bars in Kathmandu, which in reality function as brothels, under the pretext that they’ll just be dancing and that showbusiness scouts go to these bars. In too many cases the girls end up being sexually abuse by customers and forced into sexual exploitation by the owners or managers of these venues.

Dance bars in Kathmandu are also used by other traffickers to lure girls into crossing the border to India under further promises of better employment and real opportunities in showbusiness, where it is likely they will end up again in forced prostitution rather than in the showbusiness opportunity they were once again promised.

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Right: A performer dances in a type of singing bar and restaurant usually known as ‘dohori’ where Nepali music and dance, both traditional and more modern, is performed both for night entertainment, family functions and children’s birthdays. Kathmandu, Nepal.

Unlike direct sex facilitating businesses with private cabins and secluded corners, dohoris are usually one large hall where customers are visible throughout. These also provide family entertainment for celebrations such as children's birthdays.

However, the line between the two can be blurry. Little regulation and supervision of the sector, as well as persistent stigma towards women working in entertainment, make workers vulnerable. Although sexual services are not provided in dohoris, many girls who were first lured to these jobs with the promise of conducting simple waitress services or performing solely as artists, report that once on the job, abuse and harassment by clients is common. They also report pressure and coercion by business owners and managers into pleasing clients by allowing lewd conversations and touching to happen, including pressure into having sex with customers in some cases. 

Twenty nine year old Saraswati Adhikari, who was sold at nine y/o by a neighbor to a travelling circus in India, stretches during her circus practice in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. After being rescued six years ago and faced with lack of opportunities, she became a contemporary circus performer in a circus company formed by her and other former circus slaves.

During her time as a circus child slave in India, Saraswati was never allowed to go to school, was routinely beaten, poorly fed, never paid and was married off at 14. At 17 y/o she already had already given birth to three children. After Saraswati and others were rescued and returned to Nepal, they soon realized they knew little else other than circus performance, which also carries a deep stigma in Nepal. Under an NGO’s guidance, they formed their own contemporary circus company in an attempt to make ends meet and to materialize their vision of a modern, free and educational circus.

However, children keep disappearing. Between July 2016 and July 2017 alone, 2,772 children were reported missing.Research suggests that annually, approximately 12,000 children are trafficked by strangers, neighbors and families from Nepal to India mainly for sexual exploitation in brothels, but also to work in fisheries, construction, domestic work, sweatshops, among many other forms of forced labor and exploitation, including organ removal. 

Left: Indira Ranamagar (far right), a Nepalese social worker and activist of humble origins, hands out apples to children of female prisoners, many imprisoned for human trafficking, at the women’s ward of Kathmandu’s Central Prison, Nepal.

After children complete five years old, they will be sheltered in one of the several homes run by Ranamagar through her non-profit ‘Prisoners Assistance Nepal’ dedicated to assisting and reintegrating prisoners and their incarcerated children.

The events that led many of the women to be imprisoned may not be what they seem. Indira Ranamagar maintains that many of the imprisoned women have been wrongly convicted in flawed legal proceedings where, according to her, it is the small person’s fate to take the fall for the big, untouchable fish in the human trafficking world.

Ranamagar describes the ones imprisoned as often being very poor, gullible local people who believed they were recruiting workers for real jobs and were unaware of the real intentions of traffickers who pose as employment agents for overseas work. This, according to her, is a common strategy with multiple variations. One is, for example, to pay unsuspecting “mules” to escort what they tell them is a niece, cousin or sister travelling for a visit across the border without being told that the women or girls may end up sold for sexual exploitation in India or overseas.

Ranamagar also underlines that, in an unforgiving context of extreme and widespread poverty, the poorest people may resort to crime out of desperation. She insists that the wider root causes that allow trafficking to thrive and that enable big trafficking rings to count on an endless supply of not only victims but also of foot soldiers, must be addressed.

In what Ranamagar describes as the most glaring miscarriages of justice, women who are trafficking survivors have ended up imprisoned as authorities will occasionally treat trafficked victims as associates to their handlers. According to the Terre des Hommes’ “Handbook for Decision Makers” on “Trafficking and Exploitation in the Entertainment and Sex Industries in Nepal” girls and women have reported that “they are not allowed to quit until they bring one or more girls to replace them, thus forcing them into the position of pimp or trafficker.” 

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Right: A bag carrying a letter and treats, among which are snacks and cookies, is seen at NGO worker Indira Ranamagar’s car, sent by a female prisoner at the women’s ward of the Kathmandu’s Central Prison, to her child, one of the many children of incarcerated parents that Ranamagar has taken under her care.

After children complete five years old, they will be sheltered in one of the several homes run by Ranamagar through her non-profit ‘Prisoners Assistance Nepal’ dedicated to assisting and reintegrating prisoners and their incarcerated children.

The events that led many of the women to be imprisoned may not be what they seem. Indira Ranamagar maintains that many of the imprisoned women have been wrongly convicted in flawed legal proceedings where, according to her, it is the small person’s fate to take the fall for the big, untouchable fish in the human trafficking world.

Ranamagar describes the ones imprisoned as often being very poor, gullible local people who believed they were recruiting workers for real jobs and were unaware of the real intentions of traffickers who pose as employment agents for overseas work. This, according to her, is a common strategy with multiple variations. One is, for example, to pay unsuspecting “mules” to escort what they tell them is a niece, cousin or sister travelling for a visit across the border without being told that the women or girls may end up sold for sexual exploitation in India or overseas.

Ranamagar also underlines that, in an unforgiving context of extreme and widespread poverty, the poorest people may resort to crime out of desperation. She insists that the wider root causes that allow trafficking to thrive and that enable big trafficking rings to count on an endless supply of not only victims but also of foot soldiers, must be addressed.

In what Ranamagar describes as the most glaring miscarriages of justice, women who are trafficking survivors have ended up imprisoned as authorities will occasionally treat trafficked victims as associates to their handlers. According to the Terre des Hommes’ “Handbook for Decision Makers” on “Trafficking and Exploitation in the Entertainment and Sex Industries in Nepal” girls and women have reported that “they are not allowed to quit until they bring one or more girls to replace them, thus forcing them into the position of pimp or trafficker.”

Left: A row of homes is seen at the Thapathali-Kupondole community on Kathmandu’s Bagmati river bank, one of the 29 slums in Nepal’s capital where displaced villagers sought refuge from the 1996-2006 civil war or seeking better opportunities away from much poorer in rural areas.

Due to extreme poverty this community is a source for desperate potential trafficking victims. However, the community has collectively fought to keep its members from harm's way by holding trafficking awareness initiatives, bringing jobs to the community and setting up a day care for children in hopes of keeping its youth from seeking opportunities far from Kathmandu and beyond the community’s reach.

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Right: The parents of Niroj Sunuwar, a 27 year old organ trafficking victim, who was convinced by traffickers that if he sold a kidney it would grow back, pose for a portrait at the entrance of their home in the village of Baluwa in Nepal.

The two brick factory day workers say they struggle to support their bedridden son and to provide the treatments Niroj needs. However, theirs is not an unfamiliar situation in this remote rural area. The district became infamously known as Nepal’s kidney bank where entire villages were conned by organ trafficking syndicates into selling their kidneys.

Twenty seven year old Niroj Sunuwar, a victim of organ trafficking who was convinced by traffickers that if he sold a kidney it would grow back, lies on his bed where he spends most of his time with his chickens, listening to bands such as Rage Against the Machine and Led Zeppelin on the radio, in the village of Baluwa in Nepal’s Kabhrepalanchok district. Niroj lost control over his lower body following prolonged illness in the years after selling one of his kidneys to organ traffickers.

Eight years ago, Niroj was known in his village as a talented aspiring Nepali pop singer. He wanted to record his first music album with the money traffickers promised him. But his dream never came true. Of the roughly 100,000 Nepali rupees he was promised — less than US $1000 —, Niroj only saw half. He says he feels constant guilt about his decision to trust the traffickers and sell his kidney, instead of being able to work today to help his destitute parents now taking care of him.

Left: L. sits on a bed checking her mobile phone, while a street hustler shows the premises and the women available at one of the dozens of massage parlors, functioning as fronts for brothels, in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu. These are colloquially known as “sassage” parlors for providing sex on its premises. L. had previously worked in Lebanon as a domestic worker but lack of opportunities after returning to Nepal led her to sex work in Kathmandu.

According to the Terre des Hommes’“Handbook for Decision Makers” on “Trafficking and Exploitation in the Entertainment and Sex Industries in Nepal” girls and women have reported that “they are not allowed to quit until they bring one or more girls to replace them, thus forcing them into the position of pimp or trafficker.”

This is one of the reasons home is also where danger is. Many of the victims of trafficking do not cross the border into other countries, being taken or lured to other locations within Nepal, usually from rural areas to metropolitan areas by people they know, under the promise of a job as waitresses or domestic workers. Instead they end up forced into prostitution in businesses like cabin or dance restaurants and bars, massage parlors, among other venues soliciting sex in bigger cities like the Nepal's capital Kathmandu.

Some of the women and girls are also in debt bondage from ‘advance’ payments made by the traffickers to their families or to a kidnapper by the trafficker (as with girls who are trafficked to India). Thee advance payments are, in practice, the payment families or others get for surrendering, or selling the girl and, in many cases, her virginity. Other victims are indebted from loans that they incur from their handlers for accommodation, food, mobile phones or from pimping them. 

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Right: A client at a “sassage” parlor, the colloquial name for massage parlors that function as fronts for brothels and where sex is provided in the premises, is seen reflected in a mirror (left) in one of such parlors in in the tourist area of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu.

L. gives a tourist a massage, during which L. asks whether she was to proceed to “extra service”, or paid sex, at one of the dozens of massage parlors that function as fronts for brothels, known colloquially in Kathmandu as a “sassage” parlors in the tourist area of the Nepalese capital.

When compared to singing restaurants, dance bars and cabin restaurants, the girls and women in massage parlors earn much less than those found in other sex soliciting venues as they have no access to income from customer purchases of food and drink, and are dependent solely on the sex they provide customers. Massage parlors are typically divided into small rooms or cabins with a bed in each. Sexual services in massage parlors do not overlap with entertainment, music, alcohol or food consumption.

According to data released in September 2018 by Nepal’s Unicef Country Office,“an estimated 11,000 to 13,000 girls and women are working in the ‘night entertainment industry‘ in Kathmandu Valley alone, the majority of whom are underage/children. However, it is believed that existing data does not accurately represent the magnitude of the problem and that actual numbers are likely to be much higher since women and girls are coached to lie about their ageand their situation to social workers in fear of reprisal by business owners and managers.

According to the Terre des Hommes’ “Handbook for Decision Makers” on “Trafficking and Exploitation in the Entertainment and Sex Industries in Nepal” girls and women have reported that “they are not allowed to quit until they bring one or more girls to replace them, thus forcing them into the position of pimp or trafficker.” 

Left: A worker (right) talks to two clients (left) at a “sassage” parlor, the colloquial name for massage parlors functioning as fronts for brothels and where sex is provided in the premises, waiting for their turn in one of such parlors in the tourist area of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu.

This is one of the reasons home is also where danger is. Many of the victims of trafficking do not cross the border into other countries, being taken or lured to other locations within Nepal, usually from rural areas to metropolitan areas by people they know, under the promise of a job as waitresses or domestic workers in the capital. Instead they end up forced into sex work in businesses like cabin or dance restaurants and bars, massage parlors, among other venues soliciting sex in bigger cities like the Nepalese capital Kathmandu.

According to the Terre des Hommes’“Handbook for Decision Makers” on “Trafficking and Exploitation in the Entertainment and Sex Industries in Nepal” girls and women have reported that “they are not allowed to quit until they bring one or more girls to replace them, thus forcing them into the position of pimp or trafficker.”

Some of the women and girls are also in debt bondage from ‘advance’ payments made by the traffickers to their families or to a kidnapper by the trafficker (as with girls who are trafficked to India). The advance payments are, in practice, the payment families or others get for surrendering, or selling the girl and, in many cases, her virginity. Other victims are indebted from loans that they incur from their handlers for accommodation, food, mobile phones or from pimping them.

Nepal has been labeled by several international bodies as a “source country” for the trafficking in persons to other countries. As a result, research and reporting on human trafficking in the Nepalese context has mostly revolved around external trafficking, or human trafficking from Nepal to other countries.

However, the 2015 earthquake brought an high increase in the estimates of human trafficking within Nepal from rural areas and into particularly the capital, Kathmandu, with Nepal being re-classified both as “a source, transit, and destination country”.

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Right: M. poses for a portrait in one of the small rooms of a “sassage” parlor, the colloquial name for massage parlors functioning as fronts for brothels and where sex is provided in the premises, in the tourist area of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu.

Nepal has been labeled by several international bodies as a “source country” for the trafficking in persons to other countries. As a result, research and reporting on human trafficking in the Nepalese context has mostly revolved around external trafficking, or human trafficking from Nepal to other countries.

However, the 2015 earthquake brought an high increase in the estimates of human trafficking within Nepal from rural areas and into particularly the capital, Kathmandu, with Nepal being re-classified both as “a source, transit, and destination country”.

In a less touristy area in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, what is locally known as a “cabin restaurant” solicits the company of waitresses to male customers who spend intimate time in cabins with the restaurant’s waitresses, some clearly minors.

Cabin restaurants are located in less touristy areas, cater to less wealthier customers than dance bars. These provide small private spaces, divided by plywood walls where the waitress has to entertain the customers and persuade them to purchase alcohol and food at inflated prices to pay for sexual favours. Entertainment can mean anything from conversation to kissing, fondling, masturbation or oral sex. There is usually an adjacent room in the back where clients can go with the waitress for intercourse or, alternatively, to a guest house nearby for longer encounters.

Most cabin restaurants do not cook the food on their menu. The food is purchased in restaurants nearby where the customer could eat at normal prices. The purpose of going to a cabin restaurant are the waitresses.

A study of cabin restaurants in Nepal by charity ‘Terre des Hommes’ found that “more than half of the informants stated that they are coerced by owners to conduct activities which they were unwilling to do, by threats of dismissal, harm, blackmailing or defamation. Another study found that three quarters of female workers were forced to do additional duties, most of which comprised having sex with the customer either inside a cabin or at a guest house.”

Left: A more senior waitress [right], who also doubles as madame to the younger ones, sits with the manager [left] of one of what are locally known as “cabin restaurants”, where male customers spend intimate time with waitresses in cabins separated by plywood, in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu.

A study by charity ‘Terre des Hommes’ on “Trafficking and Exploitation in the Entertainment and Sex Industries in Nepal” found that girls and women have reported that “they are not allowed to quit until they bring one or more girls to replace them, thus forcing them into the position of pimp or trafficker.”

Some of the women and girls are in debt bondage from ‘advance’ payments made to their families or to a kidnapper by the trafficker (as with girls who are trafficked to India). These advance payments are, in practice, the payment families or others get for surrendering, or selling the girl and, in many cases, her virginity. Other victims are indebted from loans that they incur from their handlers for accommodation, food, mobile phones or from pimping them. 

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Right: A more senior waitress, who also doubles as madame to the younger ones, walks through a corridor leading to several cabins separated by plywood in one of what are locally known as “cabin restaurants”, where male customers buy expensive yet simple food in exchange for intimate time in cabins with the waitresses, in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. Here, sexual services are sold directly and the venues offer the privacy of small compartments for sexual services such as as intimate touching, masturbation or oral sex.

A whole secondary industry revolves around the entertainment and sex industry in Nepal. Restaurants nearby supply the food on the venue menus. Most cabin restaurants do not cook the food on their menu. The food is purchased in restaurants closeby where the customer could eat at normal prices. The purpose of going to a cabin restaurant are the waitresses. Nearby guest houses cater to cabin restaurant customers who want longer or more private sexual encounters with the waitresses working in these venues.

It is estimated that a large proportion of workers in hospitality and entertainment sectors are victims of human trafficking. However the real scale is hard to determine since women and girls are coached to lie about their age and their situation to social workers in fear of reprisal by business owners and managers.

After working in what are considered in Nepal disreputable places, in many cases the women and girls may have nowhere else to go if their situation is made known to their original communities, as it is frequently threatened by their employers or handlers.

A toy water gun is seen on a bench in a “cabin restaurant” where male customers spend intimate time with waitresses in cabins, separated by plywood, in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. The toy gun hints at the presence of children, likely from the waitresses. It could also be used to play with each other by some of the younger waitresses who were clearly minors.

Despite governmental funds and programs set up to combat human trafficking, “it is still largely up to NGOs to reintegrate trafficked women into society, including by trying to provide them with some kind of vocational training or education. And without the creation of additional jobs, there are few guarantees that this kind of training will ultimately help them support themselves”. This may lead to victims again becoming targets of human trafficking.