Cross Border Conference Participant Discussion

Cross Border Conference
Participant Discussion:

Indira Rana, Chairperson, Prisoners Assistance Nepal:
I work with the children and women along with their families on the prison reform. We are also working on the community level and have opened schools as well. I feel that all the organizations have been working on a one-way basis.
Mr. Tripathi has commented on the holistic approach, but we need to actually seriously understand what holistic approach itself is as most of us does not understand the word as we are all most of the time only talking about cooperation. We are also grabbing unto one line for example on the issue of trafficking of girls and women, many of the United Nation’s agencies holds meetings and conference on the same trafficking issue.
Due to this one line issue, we do not discuss more on the actual internal problems within the country on the level of domestic violence that are on-going everyday. We need to look at within its problems, and some of the so-called criminals being accused are actually being victimized as well.
If we need to see a safer society, we have to look at our present reform system that should be sustainable. We have a system in Nepal that whoever is arrested, they are kept in custody in a horrible place or situation where the family are also kept along side. If a husband is arrested, it is deemed that he is the main suspect and therefore, has every right to be arrested. Or both husband and wife are arrested under suspicion and hence the children suffers in the end as they are neither here or there.
So in Nepal’s context, when a person is arrested and sends to prison from one family, the whole family suffers both socially and economically. We are talking about trafficking, when those father’s who themselves trafficked their daughters off and are arrested, he will have many different channel of friends on his side to help him out. Due to this, many women and girls are being kidnapped and trafficked. I have worked in this program for the past seventeen years and have seen some girls and women dying of HIV/AIDS.
Just recently or last year a woman who died of HIV/AIDS told me her story. Her husband married her and took her to India, and for three years was sexually abused. Her husband used to occupied the top bed with another woman, whereas just below the bed, she was forced to have sexual intercourse with a man who was very fat and heavily mustache.
When the poor woman was infected with HIV/AIDS, her so-called husband returned with her back to Nepal but was arrested by the police. The husband then told her that if they were convicted, he has some lands and will sell the land to bail her out provided she does not tell them about him being a trafficker. So the woman, based on her trafficker husband’s words complied and was convicted and later died in prison while the husband went free.
So why did this happened to the woman? This is due to lack of education, if we are to see prevention in trafficking, we must also look strongly at the level of education. Education does not mean to educate our children in order to become a doctor, a pilot or an engineer, which is our standard value these days following the western culture of education, and instilling these in our children’s mind. We have to focus more in having a more creative and skillful thinking of education within the community on how to create more educational tools on awareness building. I am sure that with this opportunity, we can prevent migration of our children.
With these in mind my organization have also opened special schools named Junkiri for the children in some of the villages as well. These special schools educate on awareness and prevention. Some of the younger participants today will also share their work on how we are collaborating with each other. While my program works on prevention, they work on anti-trafficking. In our collaborative work I am also one of the board member of the organization. We went into collaboration together as I had taken a HIV/AIDS infected woman released from jail to their organization where they worked on rehabilitation as well, and that was how later we got into working together.
On one hand while they are working on the prevention, anti-trafficking and rehabilitation program, on the other, I am working for justice of a person who have been double victimized. What I am trying to say here is that we need to focus and work for self-dignity of each person, because if you go and see the people in the jail around the world, they are all very poor people with poor background. This is my experience as when I visited a jail inFabulae, Brazil, 90% of the people jailed were of poor African origin where they had come from many generations ago and settled down in Brazil.
I also visited a jail in America and noted that 90% of the people jailed are colored people. The colored people in the jail are I think mostly neglected by their society because they are poor and colored so this is an injustice. Therefore, when we are talking about holistic approach, we need to work on prevention and have a sustainable program.
Now I don’t want to take so much time, but I do want to ask Ms. Sapana Pradhan a question, since we have been working together for a long time. When we talk about trafficking and sex workers, there are no legal rights on sex worker, but sometimes people say it is shameful to talk about having legal rights for sex workers.
What do I feel about this? You see many people are violent and I met some women in Thamel and some in Pokhara working in a massage parlor. I won’t name the woman, but one woman’s daughter was raped in the parlor, and after that was mentally disturbed so I found her in custody and rescued her. The mother of this victim told me that she has four children who are all girls that she needs to bring up, therefore, she works in the massage pallor, and yes, sometimes sells sex as a means of livelihood to raise all her children. Sometimes her customers both of Indian and Nepali origin harassed her. She said she does not use her daughters as sex workers.
I want to raise this particular issue with Ms. Sapana Pradhan on what is the legislation or law for these women? That is all, thank you.

Ranjana Sarkar, Researcher and Trainer, H. R. Alliance, VCDC (Grameen Samudayik Bikas Kendra), Sarlahi:
First of all I would like to say to all the lawyers speakers present today that I feel without having any particular documents at hand, it is quite difficult to interact at the moment. We need to know what type of women is being victimized in the five regions since there are no data on this information? Who was victimized? If we could have an indication of this data, I feel we can interact more and easily work together in the work of advocacy in the future for the women.
We are also talking about awareness, literacy, and illiteracy and campaigning work. When we are talking about campaigning work, I feel we need to firstly identify who the victims are, where the victims are, and who is the community of the victim? This way, I feel we can implement more on our work. We are also talking about legal and cross-border work that many social workers are not aware of therefore, if you could give out the Acts of the Legislation, it will be very helpful for the work of advocacy to the social workers in the cross-border. This is all I have to say. Thank you.

Benu Maya Gurung, Program Coordinator, AATWIN:
I am glad to hear from our most senior ladies lawyers on this critical issue and would like to thank them for the information they shared today. There are some of the issues I would like to raise from the panels on the cross-border issue. On the cross-border issue, the first thing we need to understand on trafficking is also what we have observed regarding forceful rescuing of the girls and women from the border. On the right-based approach issue and women rights, we need to also be clear on our responsibilities and objective of our work, and the girls and women’s activities and objective as well from the border. We need to understand the definition of human trafficking as some of the girls and women do not know that they are being trafficked and where to report their cases.
Our responsibility is to give the best information on Human Trafficking on what happens,what to expect and in the case of being trafficked, the risk they are taking, what is to bedone, and where to report. We can’t give information on one should not go as you might be trafficked off as we women have every right as our male counterpart to work outside the country. For example, right now the Nepal law does not allow us women to visit the Gulf Countries due to one incident of a woman who was sexually exploited and had ended up in death.
But even so, we just can’t stop the migration of anybody especially from the India border. There are many cases of illegal migration from the border to India and the Gulf Countries. Due to this illegal migration, the women ended being the victim of sexual exploitation. We can’t stop those who want to go either.
Like what Sapana Pradhan has talked about earlier today on GAATW and CATW. She has recently published her research work named Collateral Damage. We are all working on the prevention of anti-trafficking, but the research work gives a feeling of someone being victimized, and that we might not be at risk on the illegal migration of women to the Gulf countries as I have mentioned earlier. Therefore, it is very essential that we evaluate on the situation of cross-border and have a follow-up evaluation.
Earlier on one of the participant talked about Excess to Justice on the people who are poor. We do have a very progressive Law, but we still have a whole lot of important changes to work on. The present Law mentioned about providing compensation to the victim, but the question is from whom do we receive the compensation? Do we receive it from the person who is arrested who usually turned out to be a middleman from a poor family background? How can this person offered to have a lot of money? Hence, he usually gets away by saying he has some lands he can sell as was mentioned earlier, but in actual he does not have any money or lands.
Therefore, it is the responsibility of the Government to take the initiative in providing the compensation to the victim.
The Excess to Justice report is also done so poorly due to our Law weaknesses. If we look at the last two years reporting cases of Excess to Justice, there are only one hundred twelve (112) cases, why is that, again due to the weaknesses of the Law. Like what Sapana Pradhan mentioned earlier, there are only thirty-three percent (33%) of success stories and only five percent (5%) of the people have tried their level best to work on these cases.
Due to our cultural differences, the main culprit who committed these crimes gets away with it and walk away free. Why? Because he/she has the money and the power, therefore, can walk freely without having any conscience and mingle around in the society. But those whose daughters and children are trafficked off, the family will find it very difficult to face the society either from shame or afraid of being shunned by society, therefore, does not file a case against these culprit.
Like I said, only 33% cases are of a success stories, and even having this much percentage of success, a piece of paper does not help to curb one’s hunger for justice because we have to go through a business approach. Okay if we go through the paper work and that the person wins the case and was compensated with some amount of money, then where is the implementation of the work? Therefore, we need to work more on Excess to Justice in our field, as this is very challenging.
We are right now taking the initiative in the implementation of the new Law itself, which was why we were late in attending the conference today. The new Law has also implemented a Task Force in twenty-six Districts and most of us are not aware of this new implementation of Law, and I feel that since we are working in the same field of work, it is our responsibilities in sharing this new information to others as much as possible.
The issue on Conceptual Clarity on what exactly is migration, trafficking and smuggling, this need to be cleared to the people as the person who is trafficked, he/she does not know the fact that they are being trafficked. We have experienced that this is true when working in various districts as we received from the Community itself about ten to twelve cases of people being trafficked, and not being aware nor realizing that they were actually being trafficked.
This is why I would like to also request to please focus more on whatever is important in the policy level on building Community Awareness, and that it is very important to looked through from a holistic approach. If not, the cases of the women will just be easily dismissed without really looking into it, hence we need to have a balance approach on this. Thank you.

Manju Singh Rana, Senior Program Officer, Educate the Children:
Namaste to all, the organization I work for is not only to educate the children but also to work with women. First of all I would like to thank Ms. Sapana Pradhan for sharing her work, which was very, very informative. I would also like to thank Ms. Durga Ghimire for sharing her experiences that will be very useful for us, and to both Professor Thapaliya and Mr. Tripathi on the very informative sharing that I feel will definitely help us all in our work.
I have my own suggestions that I would like to provide and also to throw some questions as well. We have been focusing on the word Holistic, which I think all of us are indisputable. Definitely, the solving of this very problem will be a slow process therefore, we need to approach from a holistic point of view. I am not from a law background but more of a social background and still call myself a student as you all know, learning is a never-ending process so I am still learning and will continue to do so.
My suggestion to the management if there could be written documents of the speaker’s presentations, as that would be so helpful as reference materials, and a good outcome of today’s conference, for example Professor Thapaliya came with a written presentation and read it out as well. The presentations will be good references for us especially when we have to go abroad for some seminar or meetings.
Another thing is that we are talking about trafficking and on gender issue, and at the same time working with children and women. We all know that there are power relations that are obvious, and I observed that today we have four foreign participants, and the majority of us are of Nepali origins.
It is not a big deal to talk in any languages, but I do feel that communications is not to please, but to communicate and understand. This is what I learned from working in a development field and would prefer to communicate in Nepali as I feel I can do more justice in Nepali language. I even think to myself if this is also a power relations happening even in the form of language, and if this is a linguistic domination? This is just my personal feelings so please do not take this issue otherwise.
Sapana Pradhan had earlier mentioned and I agree on since I work in the social field myself, I am not aware of what the Legal Law actually is. I work in an organization where I look after the Women’s Empowerment Program for the past fifteen years and still have no idea of the Legal Law of the country, as it seems to be vital and significant information. We have been talking about dissemination earlier, so how can we excess this into a mechanism work for all the people?
Sapana Pradhan talked about Conceptual Clarity that I liked very much. We seem to have jumbled or mixed up issues into one, therefore, if there were references or a brief summary of today’s presentations, it would have maybe be clear and helpful to all of us.
Nepal is a multi and diversified society, and my perspective is when a daughter is taken or given away to work as sex worker, after awhile the father will start building a tin roof over his old house or maybe a new house is erected because the daughter sends them money to uplift their poverty by working as a sex worker, and at the same time their prestige in society is uplifted due to the level of their economic changes. So to avoid this, how can we give them tools for awareness in the society who seems to accept these changes and business of sex worker? To let them know that this is not only the way, we must bring changes to uplift the culture and value and educate them in providing economic opportunities as well.
All of us come from various Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) or International Non-Government Organizations (INGOs) today. We need to be more transparent about our roles and work as just yesterday in the Nepalese news channel on television yesterday, the Youth Communist League (YCL) had commented to destroy the Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and the International Non-Government Organizations (INGOs). To avoid that kind of comments in future, we need to be more transparent in the work we do. In my view this is also another big challenge for all of us.
Last of all, there are definitely guided instruments in our country even with all its political turmoil to uplift the country’s economy. We always say the system is not working, but it is working in some small sense and we need to work towards changing the mind-set and perspective of our people. We just need a strong implementation in our work when the country’s politic is more stable. Lets not be too pessimistic towards our country I know it is frustrating, but we can also look at this as a practical frustration so that we ourselves change our own mind-set and start the change. Thank you for listening to me and for all the panels for sharing their very interesting information again.

Bishnu Sharma Acharya, Board Member of ABC Nepal, Chairperson of Morang Jilla:
Namaste to everyone, all the participants today have already commented in most of the issues and I am in agreement with all of it. To all the speakers, who are also well known in their field of work, their presentations has been heard and all of us understand that we need to continue to struggle more ahead in the work we do.
We all know how difficult our job is in accomplishing our goals and only those who has work so hard to achieve it knows the many difficulties they faces or have to go through each day. I have been working for the past ten years in this same field and I know how it is.
Many of the Trafficking cases goes directly through the government without going through anywhere else, so when it goes through the government there are different steps we have to each take until eventually the case lands in the Court itself. This means that our Law has been going through many changes, but has still not gone through the proper channels of Law.
Also when in Court some of the questions asked are so difficult to answer especially for the girls and women who returned after being trafficked or on the process of being trafficked. Even I feel so uncomfortable and find it difficult when being present in court, therefore, I feel that a different mechanism that has not been developed as yet must be worked for the girls and women in court.
As you are aware ABC Nepal has been working for a long time in the anti-trafficking of girls, women and children. We are talking about cross-border issue, everyday there are around five to ten people whom are being arrested by us. We are talking about migration, there are so many women who are crossing the border in the hope of looking for better work. The women whom we have returned back from the border and taken to our offices questioned uswhy can’t they go and work outside their country? We explained to them about the possibilities and expectation of what might happen to them when they cross the border to look for jobs.
We are talking about building people’s awareness especially in the remote areas, but we understand it has just not been enough, but I also want to say that we are always holding all these programs in big hotels, and all the main participants are the same people or other important people you and I know.
In the rural areas where ABC Nepal have their programs working with the women in the village, the women are not aware of what the new Law and the type of Law exist, and in what sectors they have their rights, and to what level a person can go to court is still unknown as yet to the people.
Whenever we go outside the country to participate in some programs, it is very sad that some of the participants from other countries will comment, “your country has a high level of human-trafficking” and I feel really bad when I hear this.
I know that there are a whole lot of organizations working towards anti-trafficking and that yes, there are Law being change and we have a person like Sapana Pradhan fighting for those changes in Law, and that we do have a small level of victory in building this changes, but definitely still have a long way to go.
I would also like to narrate you a small case that has surprised me as well as it was very interesting. We had a man who was the middleman involved in the case of Trafficking and was arrested by ABC Nepal and brought in for questioning. We were shocked to find that he had with him a diary that had a cell or mobile contact numbers right from the Prime Minister to the Ministers, and various other important people down to the small time people. The man just ran away leaving behind several pieces of passports. So as you can see a small time middleman’s level of power has gone to a very interesting level.
This is not a small man’s work but a work of higher-level persons. Until and unless our politicians are not change from the higher level who by the way does not take this episode seriously but instead laughed it away saying to themselves these NGOs/INGOs are just saying this to earn dollars. So you see it is very difficult to work for the women, as the Government does not have any place to protect the women in the house of Government. Hence the various organizations have been helping out by providing them vocational as well as other trainings and education while at the same time trying to make them an independent person.
Even while providing trainings and education, the women still do not have much faith or trust in our organizations, they are always suspicious as they think all organizations are bad. Therefore, all of us need to work together hand in hand to bring the many changes we have talked about today.
My suggestion is therefore, to work strongly towards building up the society up to the level of the State side. To bring awareness of the Law to the poorest of the poor to teach them what their rights are. Holding all the meetings and conferences in big hotels all the time will not solve these issues.
I would also like to thank all the participants especially to the speakers for sharing great issues and further would like to suggest if we could be given a hand out of all the speakers’ speeches. Thank you.

Pratima Mudbhary, President/Chairperson, Women for Women Forum (WFWF):
Namaste to all I will not take too much of your time as I am not a Law person or does not have enough practice in providing speeches as well. I feel that our issues are being a one-way trafficking topic, as we seem to be only just focusing on women, women and more women. Women are being sold within and outside the country, the root cause of women and on the cross-border issue.
Yes, these are all very important issues but we also have education, health and economic condition to build awareness. One thing that is missing is the reason for a person being sold. Women should be given awareness – you can’t just clap with only one hand but we also need two hands to do so. If a woman wants to be a sex worker, she must have male friends. So what about the men themselves, how can we make them aware of the issues? How can we educate them?
We are always talking about Right-Based issue, sure I have my rights but we can’t always go from the right-based level, we must go from the level of value itself. Otherwise, what are our roots of value, religion and culture? And is the rights of men are to use a contraceptive while women are always being trafficked? These are our education.
Sapana Pradhan’s organization has one TV advertisement that only shouts, which I am so shocked to hear really and feel the advertisement is only one-sided issue. The issue should also involve the men to further educate and give awareness at the same time. Therefore, the panels of speakers must touch this sensitive issue especially the men whom are the main person we can work with. I would like to take this opportunity to thank both Captive Daughters and Nepali Women’s Global Network for organizing this program for us as I feel we have learn a lot today and thank you to everyone as well.

Manju Khatiwada, Protection Officer, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC):
Namaskar to all present, first of all I would like to thank all the speakers for their excellent presentation. I would just like to keep this really short. When we were doing some research work on NHRC on the overall Human Rights situation, we were monitoring in different districts. In Sindhupalchowk District an NGO (non-government organization) showed me a photo of a nine-month-old boy child in the computer and was shocked to find that the little Nepali baby boy was sold for Nrs. 40,000 (rupees forty thousand) in Norway. The child is now about seven to eight years old, so what can we do to protect, rescue and rehabilitate a child like in this situation? I just could not do my research work after seeing this. So I need to know how we can work on the mechanism

both Nationally and Internationally on this issue and if you could give me some clarity as well. Thank you.

Prashikshya Karki, Program Assistant, Caritas Nepal:
Namaste, there was one issue that was raised today that I would like to agree whole-heartedly and that is of not being aware about the Law. I feel what we can do about this non-awareness is maybe go through the schools to the secondary level students and hold a weekly basis discussion classes as a compulsory to the secondary level students maybe as a moral or any specific education period classes on Human Trafficking. They can also encourage them to this topic as learning and sharing discussion with their parents. I feel if this can be done, then maybe this can disseminate awareness among them. Thank you.

Durga Ghimire, President, ABC Nepal:
All of you have given both questions and suggestions and we have embraced it well and we must take this from a grass-root level. We NGOs have already started working on this and the Law cannot only be documented until we have also made some progress on this. The holistic approach that we have been discussing today, we have been holding that role and will have to link up with various organizations. We also have received good suggestions and advices from all of you today.
Regarding the Law, as you all know it is very difficult to implement any Law. We are all not really aware on where to go and make a report ourselves. As one of the participants had said it well, the Law Enforcement agencies themselves are not aware of what the Law itself is nor are they aware of any new changes happening in the Law. For example, if we go to the Districts and ask the judges there, the judges themselves will ask us what is happening and if there are any new changes in the Law? So there is a great need to sensitize judges and the law enforcement agencies.
Regarding on providing compensation issue, which is a very crucial point raised is that the accused will never be jailed, only the middleman will be jailed and he will never be able to bail himself/herself out. Why? Because the accused are mainly the leader of the gang, hence he will always run free. When in talking about compensation the middleman will never be able to provide compensation.
There are so many works we have to do for the implementation of the existing law. We also don’t know what problems will be created or faced during the period of the implementation work itself, this is the question for tomorrow. We have to work in coordination among various actors and we have to create forum and need to do strong lobbying and advocacy work like today. If we all become a one-voice, we can really surge ahead and change the lives of the women and children. Thank you.

Professor Shanta Thapaliya, President, LACC:
First of all my thanks to all the participants today, I feel I myself have been educated, as we ourselves don’t know everything so we are always learning as well. I like Indira’s report on Prison as I myself have stayed in Prison for thirteen months in total of the three times. I feel that when a person is in prison a person does not change at all, but instead become more criminal minded. I don’t know what the situation is in today’s prison, but I remember that every Sunday women used to be beaten with a nettle leaves dipped in cold water and are unconscious for twenty-four hours, that was the situation then.
So yes, we must bring changes and in doing so we need to first change our strategy and ourselves. The important issue is also what one of the participant mentioned earlier was gainful employment. Every time we talk about women, we are always indeed talking about it as if it is the same tailoring job. We have been making some progress in providing women with some training. I just came from a training of thirty-six women and still manage to participate here today. We also train women in driving a tempo, hotel management, community and health worker training and many more in association with other organizations.
Regarding documentation for all participants today, we don’t have the data, which is the real event. Everything is based on a secondary data. Whatever number we are saying about five thousand or seven thousand, nobody has done any real research it is all just an estimate from a secondary data and this I know very well. Therefore, we must have a comprehensive research and UNIFEM has also done some research based on the secondary data. We have also been monitoring the media for the past seven to eight years and every year monitors just how many women from which ethnic group and from which districts leaves the country. We have a detailed data on this and if you are interested you are most welcome to visit my office to pick it up.
Benu Gurung raised an issue on right-based approach, I think you might also be aware of that we do have a very comprehensive documents that talked a lot about right-based approach called Minimum Standard of Care for the Survival of Trafficking. Also right now we are on the process of working on the awareness based on this document and we have already started this in Chitwan and Biratnagar where I have also visited. I feel that on the right-based approach, we need to understand what is the very basic minimum standard. Some of the basic-right approach cannot be documented because the process is very expensive.
Community awareness being not enough is also very true, but not only this we must also have community participation on the issue of trafficking. I do hope that I have been able to answer most of your questions. Thank you.

Sapana Pradhan:
Many questions have been answered but aside from this questions and answers, the first thing is that the issue of selling and buying of girls and women is our issue, and a crime against the State. I would also like to salute everyone today as well and to also let you know that whatever issues we have spoken as speakers of the day, are the same concern all of you have raised and working towards in putting these concern together in our presentation today and also to help us out in taking this issue much further in our work.
Being born and brought up in Nawalparasi, Chitwan and studying in a Government school, I myself find it very difficult to speak in English and have to speak very, very carefully as I make so many grammar mistakes but I have to, as I need to. Therefore, if I get to speak in my native Nepali tongue, I will feel happier and can relate issues more comfortably.
But like what Manju had said regarding that we must work towards Power of Balance and bring this issue forward in today’s conference, and sometimes yes we need to take our stand in most of these issues. We give imbalance challenge in power structure but we don’t talk about how to work towards power balance and hence, without this we cannot move forward.
But since there are some issues raised today, I would like to make it clear to what Manju and Prashikshya had commented earlier about the essential of understanding the Law, which Manju had strongly raised. It was said that the Law is ignorant and that the Law is not about us. But we have to understand that we need to go along and through the Law with all these issues, as there is always a give and take in Law. The Law cannot do without us and we cannot do without the law. So we cannot say that we don’t need the Law or that the Law is not about us. We have to move along with the Law itself.
Another thing is regarding the point made by Pratima earlier about targeting the men themselves. I feel that we need to think clearly before making our point here as there are men who are present today who are highly involved and dedicated in their work of women’s rights. When I had gone with Indira to visit a jail regarding on education program, there was a father and a mother who was in jail on the ground of selling their daughter, and at the same time, their daughter was in the same jail on the ground of selling her friend.
What I am trying to say here is that this is not about men but making your point in both a patriarchy and feudalism way. We had visited in India, Pune, Delhi, Mumbai and the owner of a brothel is a Nepali and the persons who sells the women turned out to be Nepalese and those who are sold also turned out to be Nepalese. So we do need to be very careful on what we say here.

Then when we come to talk about the trafficking of girls and women, small children, babies are being trafficked as well. Another of our biggest problem we need to also address is Child Pedophile as now in the name of adoption, a child is being trafficked as well by them. There are also cases of heavy financial transaction in the name of adoption.
There was also a case of friends being trafficked as well from an organization called Blue Diamond Society, people don’t know when they are being trafficked. What I am trying to say is that the very thought of the mind of people thinking that a girl or woman or a different category of girls and women can easily be sold, or that they can use these women or child whatever way they like is a biggest challenge that we need to continue to fight for. Therefore, we need to know the latest resolution of the United Nation on how to address the Demand-Side of Trafficking.

There was a conference held in Stockholm on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, and the discussion was mostly based and debated on the demand-side issue and that need to be focus as well.

Another point raised by Benu Gurung was that we are discussing more on the Right-Based approach, but not respecting the issue on migration. This is also one of our biggest challenge so when we are talking about the Conceptual Framework here, migration depends on the sake of acceptance we are working for everyday, but we need to understand that women does not have both the acceptance or recognition or if they don’t, they will be sold easily while being migrated.

We went to court on the migration of women’s rights up to the Supreme Court that sayswomen need to take special permission (especially when going through companies), from their parents and then the government itself just to travel outside the country as this has been made into a Law. So when we took this issue to the court of Law, they told us that this is specially created for the safety of the women as when women travel outside the country they will be sold or trafficked, therefore, with this new law, they will not be sold or trafficked.
I remember when I had gone to visit my son in his school’s hostel where he stay, I saw a screen door in the teacher’s rooms but not on the child’s room. When I asked why was this, the answer I got was because the children never closes the screen door and keep it open all the time. So when the children keep the screen door open all the time the mosquitoes will go inside and attacked them. This is exactly what trafficking and migration policy is about, do we remove the screen door and let the mosquitoes go in and attack the victims or do we teach them on how to close the door? This is just an example.
I recently met a woman who returned back after being trafficked off for sexual exploitation and found her full of trauma on the experiences she went through. She had gone through illegal channels. So what is the definition of Trafficking? Is it about Migration Right? There is no consent given in Trafficking. If there were consent then there would not be Trafficking. Therefore, we cannot have a concept in thinking that in migration there will only be Trafficking we need to build an able environment.

When I looked at all the cases that I had worked on, what most missing is Capacity Building, and the negotiation with the Government level on how we can work about the problem of In-Transit and to take this further to a different level. When I was in Afghanistan, I met with five women who were trafficked off so yes, there are trafficking in migration. So when the law is in progress itself there is also inadequacy in the law.

Regarding on the issue of compensation to the victim, we have created a clause saying that the Government themselves must create a Funding Policy in providing compensation. The clause we had worked on was taken to a level of in-the-case-of-death-of-the-victim, the compensation must go to his/her immediate family, but this was not agreed by the Government as they don’t have the fund to do this, but instead talked about the amount equivalent of used in the crime (bigo bharaye wapat ko paisa or fine received by the person who had committed the crime), this will be taken and put into the fund category. It is a beginning but not complete as yet but at least we have put this as a compensation level to the victim, which is a small victory. The other good news is regarding on witness protection.

Earlier on Indira has also mentioned that due to the weaknesses in Law, the victims are hostile. There are a whole lot of issues on this and we have studied the problems in the law enforcement so if anyone is interested they can come and have a copy of this studied document. We have also been trying to address these problems, but I will not say there are neither.

Another issue raised was the definition and clarity of Trafficking. What happens is that prostitution is not trafficking, but Trafficking is selling and buying off people. Like on the issue of servitude and bonded laborer, these issues have now also fallen in the definition of trafficking and also become an acceptance in internal trafficking, which we have to move this particular issue forward as well.

But I am happy to report that we have succeeded in defining the definition of trafficking and migration in the New Year 2064. I was involved myself from the beginning and to the level this has come into effect is that when a woman goes on a foreign employment, she must not be subjected to any form of various interrogation. There are particular agreements for the women as well in the employment and priority is given and some fees should be free of cost. So, one of our successes is in defining the definition of trafficking and migration but we need to also be aware that there might be a possibility of trafficking in constantly voluntary migration as well.

I have come to an end of my comments on the questions raised, but would like to answer one of Indira’s comment. Her comment was on what is the right of women working in the field of sex workers? A woman working as a sex worker has every rights as well. What I would say is that since Save The Children organizations are working here, when it comes to the focus of a child we also have to separate the consent of the adult women and children because the children can never be able to give their consent, therefore, we must look into the children-based interest of a child’s development because in the environment of sex exploitation, a child cannot have any best interest of itself.

My other main concern that we fought for with the law is the definition in sexual exploitation. When we had pressured them in having a clause that said there is sexual exploitation even in prostitution, the law did not agree with us hence, we could not discuss further more on other rights of the women. But we have also taken to court on the clause of the law that reads that when a person working in the field of a sex worker, a Nrs. 500.00 (rupees five hundred) will be fine, and if the sex worker is raped, a Nrs. 500.00 (rupees five hundred) will be fine and at the same time sentenced to jail for one to two months. In Pokhara there was a sex worker who was raped by two shop owners. And what did our dear friend in the law say? The law said a fine of Nrs. 500.00 (rupees five hundred) as well as a sentence of one to two months in jail will be given on the basis of this crime, but in both the Kaski and Purva district court, the criminals were soon released after on an Nrs.500.00 rupees bail. So when this case was brought to us, we continued to intervene against this unfair and unjust punishment and later finally got to change the clause of the law against this crime.

So now, the law reads that if a sex worker is raped, it is called a rape and equal punishment will be given for the crime according to the law. This rights has been established in the law as well, but when we talk about the issue of rights and choices, there are three beliefs, one is crime legalization, second is criminalization, and third is to do or have decriminalization. We need to work for the root cause.

But for this on the demand-side like right now, the latest new good law in Sweden is call the Swedish Model. The Sweden Law says that the demand-side must always be criminalized, but no woman wants to sell her body. Manju had earlier given an example of Sindhupalchowk on the cultural affects who look upon the status of a person first, how we can bring awareness and how to internalized them but we do need to take the demand-side in a criminalized level, and even on the demand side there will be abuse and exploitation so how do we give protection?
But what the sex workers says is that they don’t want to criminalized their clients as they would not be able to have any business, but lets not go into this as yet as it’s a long process and issues but to having come up to these level is also a big step for us all. Right now due to the law enforcement weaknesses, we have not been able to succeed in most of the issues so this has been another problem.
Also Ranjana Sarkar mentioned we have not given any data on trafficking. Not having a data on Human Trafficking has been a big sad issue indeed. We do not know how many has been trafficked due to not having a proper record, if we knew we would bring everyone into the law. So this is difficult, however, what I have seen is what is recorded in the police department. Also the annual report of the Attorney General’s office that published the report are from the districts and areas most cases come from. For example, Kathmandu has the most cases fought in court on issues, and then comes Nawalparasi, Bhairahawa, and Biratnagar and so on so forth. So we would not know how many were trafficked therefore, like what Durga Ghimire has commented, it is very difficult to give data as it is not an easy process. But what I would like to see happen in Nepal’s remote areas is to have birth registration and marriage registration. We must promote these, as there are so many missing populations that go unrecorded. Even going for foreign employment must definitely be recorded, this way we can bring forward the record on the missing population. And monitoring the border is also getting to be more and more essential now.

Lastly I would like to share another case of a woman who returned back from a Gulf country some six or seven years ago. At that period whatever I say was not taken seriously, but now it does make a great different. When I took her case to court in the form of being trafficked, it was understandable for her to be frightened, as the majority of all presents were men who were watching her every move. The Judge was a man, the lawyers were all men and the participants were mostly consisting of men as well.
To proof that she was trafficked, she had to go through a series of questions from me until she admitted she was sexually exploited or trafficked, therefore, I had to be aggressive towards her in the end until she admitted that she was trafficked off with tears running down her eyes.
For me that was the hardest thing to do at that time as she was my only witness and my thought at that time was how unfortunate that being a woman victim and a woman lawyer to help her fellow woman in a case like this, we had to feel oppressed even in the court of Law where the struggle for a woman’s right to freedom can become taxing. But right now there is a new improved and positive development in the Law, the victims convicted does not require providing their testimony every now and then. As in the old law, they were requested to go through many channels like the police department, the Government sectors and finally the court of law itself.

I would like to say to Manju again especially since she raised quite a lot of issues on Law. We are working in the paralegal program called Capacity Building that I am also involved in, especially UNICEF where they are working in twenty-three districts. We have some materials that are in simplification and have especially focus together with all the women and child rights points. If you want you can visit our office and take a set of these materials and if any of you need to do capacity building we can also help you with this as a Training of Trainer (TOT) tools and move forward.

Another thing is that most of you have requested for any papers of the presentation but to tell you the truth I myself was not aware of what I need to speak or present today. But regarding on legal development of women’s right issues and trafficking documents, who ever need a copy, we have now a great deal of latest different policy materials. We also have English version that was translated from Nepali and vice versa and various materials on Violence Against Women based on the new Law. There are also materials based together on Bech Bikhan (Selling and Buying) and HIV/AIDS. Therefore, whoever are interested please do visit my office, Forum for Women, Law and Development (FLWD) and request for all these materials. Also if you need to take these materials to the project or to any of the remote areas all of you working in, you are most welcome to take these documents and give to the people too. Thank you.

Dinesh Tripathi comments:
Basically, what we are looking at trafficking is a seriously dangerous dimension as we are seeing Trafficking as having a big political backing involvement of the politicians, traffickers and the law enforcement agencies nexus in the middle and this is a very dangerous as it will be very difficult to fight against all these. As the criminals are being given protection then the Law enforcement agencies cannot work at all.
What is also seen in Nepal is the State’s inaction and the phenomenon itself is that those law enforce agencies themselves are involved in trafficking. We even see people who are arrested, they are released after they bribed the agencies, and therefore, due to this we are seeing that the law enforcement agencies are seen as the beneficiaries of Human Trafficking, so this is already looked upon as syndicate, especially since the politicians, law enforcement agencies are involved. As the saying goes, a Law breaker cannot be a Law maker.
We all know that the district Sindhupalchowk is the most highly affected place where Trafficking of human are involved. What is interesting is that we have so far not and never heard the representative of Sindhupalchowk ever neither talking nor voicing about the trafficking problem or issue. So why is that? Because a politician should actually take his/her people problem and ventilate it, talk about it and most importantly demand an astringent provision on it, but till yet again to date we have not heard any words spoken by the person in-charge of Sindhupalchowk about this particular problem.
So in a way, this has become a syndicate industry and benefited from this process, therefore, I feel that in the middle of it all there is a nexus of the politicians, traffickers and the law enforcement agencies. And this nexus is dangerous and how can we break it? Therefore, this is a very serious question. We cannot deal with this in an isolated basis cause if there is a whole political backing, there will be a cultural of impunity and they cannot be brought to justice as the justice system of mechanism itself is inefficient, corrupt and time consuming. Therefore, this issue must be taken very seriously.
Regarding the migration issue, I agree with what Sapana said that it is the right of the women to have excess in going abroad and coming from abroad. This is the Universal declaration of the Human Rights itself therefore, we cannot restrict one’s rights. But then how can we protect our women?
In the International Convention on Migrate Worker where our Nepalese go to work in Malaysia and the Gulf countries, there are no parties on any of these countries. This has become a kind of a forgotten convention and nobody is focusing on this nor Nepal has ratified this. I feel that to ratify this convention, there must be a Global campaign in South Asia. Nepal can forward a request on the basis saying since you have not ratify this convention, because our people go to these countries to work as a laborer and there are no protection of a labor law to protect them nor any legal regime of working hours.
So if there is no legal regime nor independent court nor any function of the rule of law how can we send our men and women there? There are always cases of accidents happening and many boys or men dying in a foreign soil. This is a very serious problem and is high time that we voice this out, as we must not send any of our people to a country where there is no legal regime, rule of law that does not function, an independent court and where an individual does not have rights nor liberty and the freedom. How can we send them to these countries and cause a serious risk to their life?
Right now sending Nepalese laborer to Iraq has been stopped since they do not have a legal regime of law. The countries can of course go for a bilateral agreement so that our people can have protection. Our country does not have any diplomacy or is very weak. Our Government does not concern about our citizen’s security, our life, and our liberty and for our freedom and has no legislation of working in a foreign soil. Therefore, the need to voice these vital issues must be done and that no women and men of our nation should be send where there is no protection for them.

Indira Rana, PA:
I just want to say another point to especially those organizations monitoring in the border areas. In the issues of women, there was a case a year ago where I rescued her, a woman was sent off to work in Malaysia by her aunt as she was an orphan and while working there she fell in love with a Nepali man and married him there. She returned back to Nepal after receiving a travel document from the Nepali Government but was in police custody and hence was jailed.
We are talking about Law but I feel we need to have a practical observatory group in the immigration sectors and custody. There was also another woman who can speak Nepali but actually turned out to be a Buthanese who was deported back to Nepal from Belgium and now also in jail. So there might be some abuse in these sectors, therefore, we need to establish an observatory groups that can monitor what is happening in the immigration, trafficking or border areas and where an abuse is taking place. Since we are talking about Holistic Approach, we just can’t depend on the Government all the time, but as we ourselves are organizations involved in this work we can take this further together hand-in-hand as a network, this is my recommendations.

Gita Kumari Dahal, Protection Officer & Lawyer, NHRC:
Namaste, there has been various issues raised and heard today but I would just like to give a short one. In actual we are talking about Trafficking, but we need to understand the concept of what Trafficking really is. Otherwise if we do not know then we cannot explain to others for awareness building. It is said that until the root of a tree is not cut off, till then its branches will still grow, therefore,in the work of protection that we Non-government organizations (NGOs) are struggling for, we need to push ahead more on working towards in stopping the work of human Trafficking as it seems to be growing more each day.
We definitely need to work towards the root cause of the ever constant growing of human trafficking, and the disappearance of individual who has gone missing. Certainly an NGO or a handful of them cannot work alone. We need to work towards having umbrella organizations to support each other. I feel that when there is a Human Right Alliance, there also should be a Trafficking Alliance. But when having umbrella alliance organizations, we don’t work on one issue but work should be divided among us with each organization focusing on one issue and the other in another. I am sure when we do this, we all can progress ahead.
Another is that we need to bring and build awareness to our leaders of politics. Now that we know that there are hands playing in the world of Trafficking, we need to make sure there are not another and build down the number. Thank you.

Sharmila Dhakal, Lawyer, Blue Diamond Society:
As we are talking about Trafficking, we are only focusing more on women and children. As I am working in Blue Diamond Society as their lawyer, there are third gender people who are also being trafficked off. Therefore, when we are working on the new Law and policies, my request is that to also focus and include the third gender in all issues. Thank you.

Pratima Mudbhary, Women for Women Forum (WFWF):
Thank you for bringing to us all the important issues today. I only have a short issue to discuss, our participant has today raised many important points. I feel that a woman who is trafficked must have self-realization that a woman is not an object to be used and abused. This is what we need to educate the women as sometimes, they get married off and are sold by their husband on the pretext of going for a honeymoon, or their own relatives are selling them off for financial gain. Therefore, we need to teach them about self-realization on what can go wrong.
Also just recently there was a very interesting article in the Kantipur newspaper regarding widows forming a group together. This widow group of women has all lost their husbands to HIV/AIDS. As you all know, in our culture we have an orthodox society that looked down on people and therefore, are unapproachable hence we tend to be embarrassed and most of all ashamed and afraid to be shunned by the public. But these widows got together and for the first time, form a group of widows who lost their husbands to HIV/AIDS and their self-realization was that they should not be ashamed that their husbands lost their lives to HIV/AIDS.
Therefore, I feel that maybe the women who have been especially victimized as well can also follow the widow’s lead and form a group to help each other. On the Legal Law issues, everyone knows there are laws, but nobody knows what are in the laws, especially the women in the village they have no idea the law means or what their rights are in the law. ETC Nepal has right now on the basis of non-formal education, been educating the Legal aspects to the villages.
As everyone knows, in our culture a girl child is always kept far behind and in this twenty-first century we are still far behind, therefore, we need to really get our priority right and help to pushed them more, also from the media how to stop this cultural differences. Also we who are working in the field of Anti-Trafficking and Legal Law or whatever job we do, should never have that arrogance of feeling about our job responsibility or that we are a working women, because it is our responsibility and we need to surge ahead and work to fight more together towards its goal. Thank you.

Name unknown:
This is my first time ever to participate in today’s conference and I feel that I have learned a lot then what I have expected as I am new towards this field of work. I have also recently visited India and more then participating in meetings and conferences the reality is always different then what other people are saying.
Today’s discussions are very important no doubt, but we also need to put this into action as we talk about it all the time, but never do anything about it as well. On the cross-border issue, due to our country’s poverty condition, people are crossing the border or migrating to another country to have a better life.
My suggestion on the cross-border issue is that if we could approach the Bus Committee at the borders and do a contractual agreement with them. The agreement can be that we give them a cassette or CDs that holds advices on cross-border issues, paper work needed, stories on Trafficking of people who was trafficked, on HIV/AIDS and about people who had gone for foreign employment. This cassettes and CDs can maybe be played for fifteen to half-an-hour and can be played in the buses after it takes off from the border. This way, those in the busses can listen to these and I think will be very interested in listening. What do you think of this?
Another thing is that I had gone to work in an organization as a student/intern and I was told that I couldn’t be involved in another person’s work. An organization has its own rules, regulations, visions, and missions, but our main focus is on Social Work and does our work according to what our job responsibility is. Therefore, we should focus more on working under one umbrella and can work towards the root causes. We must not see our work in a competitive, commercial, business and media way either, but how to fight and move ahead together. Thank you.

Deepak Gupta, (Secretary), Bhojpuri Student Society of Bara and Parsa:
I am also one of those people whom today have learned a lot on various issue. I have especially realized that on the issues discussed are equally very important to have men’s role in it. About the Human Trafficking from the border point to India, and through the airport, in the Terai region, we have the Madhesi people residing in the border areas as well, but I feel that on the issue of Trafficking, there is not much problem of Trafficking with the Madhesi people.
Again Human Trafficking happens due to lack of awareness, lack of having no formal education and of course poverty. We do come across some Trafficking cases but not as much in the Terai. If we are talking about the Muslim women, there is less literacy rate infact not more then 3% of the Muslim women in the Terai region. There are less awareness on the issue Trafficking as well.
Look at the cases of the street boys or children in some cities where there are organizations involved in helping them out, but there are no organizations looking after the street children in the Terai region. Why is that? I feel this is another of the root cause we need to look at as well and I feel family structure is also very important. Regarding on marriage there are cases of polygamy, one man or woman marrying several times.
But I feel that though in the Terai borders where the Terai people are residing, the issue of Trafficking is not a problem with them and I don’t know how much knowledge of Human Trafficking they are aware of. So I feel that we must also educate this issue to build awareness with them as well. Lastly, all these issues on women, there should be both women and men involved in solving this problem of Human Trafficking. We have 50% population but 50% just went away, this is about stopping them in migrating. One of my Guru (teacher) had commented earlier that if all men were to become feminist, 50% of women’s problem will just dissolved. Thank you.

Durga Ghimire, President, ABC Nepal:
I just want to comment on what was raised regarding about Martin Chautari where one of the participants commented she can also work on a voluntary basis and I am very happy to hear this. I would like to help you in providing a whole lot of materials like audio video, videocassettes and posters that I will be very happy to give you. These materials are on awareness building of the people.
Also for your information, we do hold these kinds of conferences and meetings in the villages as well on all the issues discussed today. On the comment about holding these kind of conferences and meetings in three to five star hotels, I remember that in one of our meeting in 1990, we had invited the then Prime Minister and one of the participant or reporter had also commented about having the meeting in a big hotel. At that time, I replied to the query that if not the hotel then we should hold these meetings and conference in the field? See only issues or topics are what we need to focus more on not where it is being held.
Also on the comments made by Geeta Dahal on Umbrella Organization, I think you are not aware of but we do have one of this organization established in 1990 called, Chelibeti Bech Bikhan Berudha Rastra Samuha (National Network Against Human Trafficking) and AATWIN.  In NNAGT we have 135 organizations in 36 Districts. We also organize various trainings on these issues and also partners Capacity Building. There is an office in Dilli Bazaar where it is our biggest Information Center, and we have huge information of about 5,000 publications so if you are interested you are most welcome to visit the office.
Also on the issue of third gender, which is a very important issue and we must bring this in the recommendation of the draft of the legislation. Another participant’s idea on having a Bus Committee in playing the CDs and Cassettes in the bus is an excellent and important idea indeed and we do have these cassettes called Shakti ra Cheli ko Awaz (Power and Voice of the Girls) so we will certainly take this idea into consideration.
Regarding on the Trafficking of Madhesa women, there are many cases of them being trafficked especially from the Districts of Morang, Dang, and Sunsari. There are cases but not as much and we have a Data on this. Regarding about 50% men being sensitized in these issues we don’t even have 15% men being sensitized but if we do I feel there should not be much problem.

Summarization by Dinesh Tripathi:
I feel that today’s conference was very fruitful and many very important issues was both discussed and raised and on how to take these issues much further. I feel that it was also a big good education of learning point to enrich and expand our vision.
Whatever we have discussed, listen and learned today does not take us too far, therefore, what we need to do is put these issues on today’s discussion on what was the conclusion was and put it as a ten point recommendation.
I have not been able to capture all the points but did whatever I can. These recommendations can be used as an advocacy tools and must widely be disseminate. If you feel that there are other things missing or feel should be added, then lets try and accommodate this as well.

Ten Points Recommendations are:

Due to having a very fickle and corrupted Law we have to make it targeted, influential, capable.

To ratify the Protocol conventions of Nepal.

To sensitize our Society through education scheme.

To break through the protection in the corruption of the Politicians, Law Enforcement Agencies and the syndicate crimes.

The State must have a good mechanism on Migration issue for all men and women and to have a proper follow-up routine of those working outside the country.

Regional Mechanism needs to be upgraded, strengthened and there must be some implementation of instrumentality and should be incorporated in the regional guideline.

Root Cause to be uprooted. For Women’s Development, the State must have a comprehensive package that need to be implemented.

Restructuring the function of the Justice System as it is gender neutral and hostile towards our women as they are not gender sensitive.

Women have the right to privacy and there is no right-based approach.

Third Gender is a universal phenomenon therefore, it need to be addressed.

Five Minutes Recommendations by the Participants on the ten points:

Durga Ghimire:
We must have strong coordination and cooperation between the various stakeholders whom are government and various organizations. Bilateral talk is very important with the Government and must be a priority issue. However, in the task of how to make the Law aware of the law itself should be also given a high priority. If go through the holistic approach the root cause will be sorted out if all are done together.

Indira Rana:
To send all the participants the document so that people can go through it as well and add more points.

To have an effective Law having a monitoring group from both the Government and the people.

Deepak Gupta
Sex Tourism to be curb and Prostitution Legalization Issue – to be legalize or not legalize.

Sharmila – BDS
To do research on Law Enforcement Mechanism as many innocent women are being jailed for no apparent reason we also need to study this as well.

Dinesh Tripathi:
Will include all abovementioned in the ten points itself and put this in an ad-hoc version. So thank you so much to all for providing your energy, time and efforts in attending today’s conference and we need to work together and lets say this is a beginning of our process and do this in a collective fight.