By Pragati Shahi
DEEPA Majhi opened a local eatery three months ago, near the Chandragiri Hills, a tourist site close to Nepal’s capital Kathmandu.
For a passerby, it might appear to be a typical tea shop with a small corner-side kitchen and seating arrangements for customers. But, for this 24-year-old woman, it signifies “strength and freedom” to rebuild “a life with dignity.”
Majhi was rescued in February this year from a hotel room in Kerala, a southern Indian state located some 3,000 kilometers from her native Sarlahi district in eastern Nepal.
She was held captive in Kerala for nearly two months by a human trafficking network that operated in Nepal, India, and Persian Gulf nations, said the Good Shepherded nuns in Kathmandu who helped her gain her freedom.
Thousands of Nepali migrant workers travel overland through India to work as domestic servants in Persian Gulf nations and even to Malaysia.
Majhi was promised a job as a housemaid in Oman with a monthly salary of 40,000 Nepali rupees (US$300), double what her husband made by loading goods in trucks in her village.
The mother of a three-year-old daughter was to travel to Oman via India.
Before she decided to go to Oman, her husband had tried to apply for Malaysia.
“But medical tests showed he had pneumonia, which made him ineligible,” Majhi told UCA News. “So, there was no option but to try myself as it was becoming extremely difficult to provide two meals a day to my toddler.”
Poor women targeted
Majhi’s trafficking journey started in early September last year when Chandre Tamang, a 42-year-old man from her village, spoke about her chances of getting work in Oman.
“When I told him, I don’t have money to apply for a passport and other related expenses, he said he would cover all the expenses, but I would need to send half of the first month’s salary once I start working in Oman,” Majhi recalled.
She was first taken to Delhi and then to Kochi (formerly Cochin) in Kerala in the last week of November last year.
In Delhi, Majhi met another Nepali woman Ritu Naysur, 21, who was also supposed to be taken by the same network to work as a housemaid in Oman.
In Kochi, the two women were sent to a hotel, and on the day of their journey to Oman, they were told to lie to authorities about their travel plans and say they were on their way to Nepal via Colombo, Sri Lanka.
They failed in their first attempt as the authorities at Cochin International Airport detained them citing inadequate travel documents.
Three weeks later, after arranging for further documentation, the women were taken to the airport. But again, they were questioned by authorities at the airport and sent back.
“When we were sent back for the second time, I thought I may never leave for Oman and requested the local agent send us back to Nepal,” Majhi said.
But the agent refused and instead asked the women to pay back the money spent on their travel and stay so far.
“They even told us to lie to our families that we were already in Oman and would be able to send money soon,” Majhi said.
The two Nepali women were kept in a cheap hotel room in poor condition.
“We lived without food and were not allowed to go out of the room,” Majhi said. “It had become so difficult, I thought I would never get to see my daughter again and would die there.”
Help arrives
Life indeed became unbearable by the time Ritu called her maternal uncle in Nepal who immediately sought police help.
The police in Nepal contacted their counterparts in Kerala and the voluntary agency KIN India, which assisted in rescuing and repatriating the two women.
The women were taken to a transit shelter run by Opportunity Village Nepal (OVN), a non-governmental organization run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.
They were provided physical care, psychosocial counseling, and skills training to get back on with life.
Majhi stayed at the home for just over a month and was selected to undergo vocational training under the Cross Border Anti-human trafficking project at the OVN.
The women registered a case of human trafficking against Chandre Tamang, Saru Tharu, and Suman Tamang, at the Nepal police’s Anti-human Trafficking Bureau (AHTB) on Apr 22.
Women most vulnerable
The two women represent less than three percent of trafficking victims lucky enough to be saved. Thousands of young girls and women end up in the clutches of traffickers and endure exploitative environments of abuse.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of Nepal in 2022 revealed that around 40,300 Nepalis, most of them women and girls were trafficked between 2019-2021. Around 1.9 million people remain at risk of being trafficked, it said.
It is estimated that around 80 percent of the women who went abroad as domestic help were taken through “informal routes” from neighboring India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
Many ended up in the Gulf states, according to a 2023 report by AMKAS (Aprabasi Mahila Kamdar Samuha) Nepal, an organization “for, by and of returnee women migrant workers.”
Successive governments in Nepal have tried various measures including a blanket ban, and sectoral and country-specific bans, to stop the trafficking of women and girls for more than two decades.
Since 2017, there has been a complete ban on Nepali females seeking work as domestic workers in Persian Gulf countries. However, it has failed to stop their trafficking through illegal means.
“Thousands of women desperately in need of work are leaving the country using irregular channels, and this has made them more vulnerable to trafficking and forced labor,” says Bijaya Rai Shrestha, executive director of AMKAS Nepal.
These bans clearly don’t factor in the problems at home, which force women to seek opportunities abroad. Poverty, lack of work opportunities, and other problems like domestic violence and patriarchy, are forcing women to escape.
AMKAS Nepal strongly feels that more intensive work and interaction are needed with women in this first phase of migration, i.e., when they migrate internally as a stepping stone to their overseas migration.
If these women get timely help to improve their skills and capacity, besides becoming aware of their rights at this stage, it will reduce their vulnerability and risk of being trafficked abroad.
Unless this kind of institutional intervention is achieved, Shrestha said, “The number of undocumented female migrant workers lured by traffickers will continue to rise.”
Uttam Mishra, a superintendent of police at the AHTB, confirmed there has been “an increase in the number of human trafficking cases being registered as has also the number of rescued persons.”
A AHTB report revealed that 506 people were rescued in the last fiscal year, of whom 423 were women and girls. A total of 166 human trafficking-related cases were registered by a total of 213 victims, and 326 suspects were arrested in the same period.
Sister Anthonia Soosaiappan, director of OVN, said India has emerged as a destination, transition and departure point for organized human trafficking and various forms of abuse in the region.
Rescuing victims of abuse remains a huge challenge, but a bigger challenge is to rehabilitate them back into society with dignity, she said.
The OVN launched its cross-border anti-trafficking project in September 2019, and since then has assisted in rescuing 690 people, of which 614 were female. Among them, 471 people stayed at the shelter home, 141 were provided with vocational training and 35 were supported with income-generating skills.
In addition, 52 survivors were provided with legal support of which 12 are ongoing cases including those of Majhi and Ritu. Currently, five people are staying at the shelter, said Soosaiappan.
“While our efforts are focused on community-based awareness on unsafe migration and to protect the vulnerable from being trafficked, we also work to empower survivors to embark on a journey of entrepreneurship and help positively change their life,” she said.
Majhi is one of the 35 beneficiaries who received income-generating skills training. She took up a month-long cooking class before opening her own small business in May.
She was provided with seed money of Rs 40,000 (US$300) and raised Rs 100,000 through a loan to open her eatery business.
Majhi said she now earns around Rs 3,000 daily and can sustain her family.
“I am happy to find my way to freedom through cooking. I am very thankful for the support I received. It has empowered me to do better in the coming days.” – UCA News
