Women and girls in particular, it appears, are a marketable commodity in Nepal. They are ‘on sale’ for prices ranging from Rs.1000 to 3000. The proceeds from this trade in women goes to the girls’ fathers - ironically the intermediary between the buyer and the seller and of course, the policemen. But who is the buyer?. The girls bought by the agents of the Red Street barons in the big cities in India. The Himalayan country of Nepal is now widely selling its women into prostitution. Rekha, who belongs to the Sanosree village in Nepal is typical victim of this flesh trade. She lost her father at the age of thirteen and thus came under the care of her uncle and aunt.

  Her treacherous uncle sold her to a sex racketeer operating in Mumbai and she ended up in one of the brothels at Kamathipuram. There it was her fate to satisfy the lust of hundreds of people, most of whom she had never seen before. Four years ago, when she complained of severe fever, a medical examination revealed that she was suffering from AIDS. She had been a sex worker for over six years then but she got paltry amount of Rs.3000 by way of remuneration. With this money she went back to Nepal. But her relatives and the villagers were not willing to accept her back. They drove her out of the village. Overwhelmed by a desire for revenge on account of their cruelty, Rekha assaulted her uncle and the middleman who were responsible for her sad fate. In retaliation her uncle had her brutally beaten up and left her with broken limbs. The police charged a case against her for assault.

  A totally devastated Rekha is now on the verge of death in one of the rehabilitation centers at Kathmandu. Rekha is only one of the thousands of Nepalese girls who are thus compelled to return to Nepal from the ‘red streets’ of the cities in India. Everyday hundreds of girls are forced or tricked into prostitution in Nepal to keep their bodies and souls together. The price that a girl fetches in the sex market depends on factors such as the girl’s age, state of health and good looks. As already mentioned , hundreds of girls are sneaked into India to serve as sex workers in Indian cities. Many of them fall victims of fate because they are too young to know the nature of the world around them. It is particularly heinous on the part of the parents that they are prepared to sell their daughters into prostitution for a mere thousand rupees.

Dr Govinda Prasad Kusum goes on record saying that on an average of 8000 such Nepalese girls cross over to India every month. Nepal and India have open borders at many points and to prevent these girls from crossing over to India is an impossible proposition. The middlemen from India who buy these girls sell them for Rs. 200,000/- or more to brothel houses. Nepalese girls are known as ‘Sukris’ in the red streets in India. ‘Tamang’ are supposed to be very beautiful. Tamang girls served as the Kings concubines during the earlier monarchy era in Nepal. With the advent of democracy in 1951, these girls took to prostitution in Nepal’s own red streets. Middlemen from India often buy their human merchandise from the backward Nepali districts of Sindhupalchok, Macvanpur And Dadingkavra. In this region, which is backward in every respect, literacy is a mere 40%. Trafficking in women is most rampant in the three villages of Echowk, Mahamkal and Talmarang. It is the crushing poverty of region that inclines the parents to sell their daughters to sex racketeers in India. The fact that Nepalese know Indian languages like Hindi and Bengali sets a premium on Nepali girls. Even ten year old girls are sold to the middlemen, who take them to the brothels in Mumbai and Kolkata. An estimated 2.5 lakhs Nepalese girls are employed in the brothels and casinos of Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore.

The Nepalese girls who cross the border to India ostensibly as domestic servants come to 28 percent of the total number of such illegal crossers. The Nepalese government initiated a project for rehabilitating such women at a cost of 13,000 dollars but it regrettably was not a success. India is not the only country where Nepalese girls are in demand. They are being sent to Hong Kong, Malaysia and the Gulf countries too. Prostitution is a particularly dirty profession and once they are in it, they may never be able to get out of it and will end in the filth of a miserable, bonded life. There are so many Nepalese girls in Kamathipuram, that the Nepalese language is heard as commonly there as Hindi and Marathi. India has about a 1740 mile border with Nepal and a Nepalese citizen does not require a visa to travel in India.

  This, combined with the fact that the India rupee is freely accepted in Nepal serves to make trafficking in women an enormously easy activity. Drug-trafficking and even smuggling of goods from one country to another can be prevented but it is not easy to check the influx of Nepalese to India. The Young Nepalese girls who are brought to India officially as domestic servants ultimately end up in the red streets. Girls who refuse to do the sex job are persecuted into submission by the middlemen. If at all they are able to return home, they return debilitated by diseases, particularly AIDS and tuberculosis. There was an instance of two school girls belonging to Bardia district in Nepal being sold for Rs. 35,000 to a middleman from Bombay. The 14 year olds Thulsa Hamal and Chanrarani Tharn were 8th standard students when they were sold to the sex racket in Mumbai. Their transit to Mumbai was arranged by Sararada Beegum of Sanosri village and six other men. This woman is a habitual offender. She was caught eight times for human trafficking during a seven year period. The brothel is an absolute prison for the young recruits from Nepal. If a girl refuses to entertain customers, she would be tied up and subjected to physical torture.

  Every brothel has its own security men. If a young girl cried out, they would burn parts of her body with live coal. The young girls are not allowed to move out of their dark rooms for over a year. They are in great demand as customers naturally prefer them over older women. Half of the amount collected from the customers is kept by the lady who runs the brothel. Further, they are charged Rs.50/- a day as room rent. If it is their fate to catch AIDS, they are abandoned for good and driven out of their street. Once back in Nepal, they are again isolated by their relatives and neighbors alike and the government itself will not have anything to do with them. Police recently conducted a raid in the red streets of Mumbai and set free 750 under aged Nepalese girls.

Medical examinations revealed that 65 percent of them were AIDS victims. Surveys conducted by the UN have shown that 20 percent Nepalese recruits are girls belonging to the 7-8 age groups. Apart from sexual exploitation, young girls are employed as dancing girls, circus artists, factory hands and domestic servants. There are also those who seduce Nepalese girls after promising to marry them. If at all the marriage takes place, the groom is sure to abandon the girls after a short while.

  Over six thousand girls are taken every year to Hong Kong and Thailand on the pretext that their services are required as domestic servants. This international racket is run by an underworld mafia. One might blame this situation on the economic backwardness of Nepal. Nepal comes last in the list of poor countries in Asia, particularly in respect of trade and agriculture. Nepalese men flock to other countries to work as security men or mercenaries. The number of AIDS patients in Nepal has also increased greatly, mostly due to their promotion of sex tourism. . The Nepalese government too, indirectly supports this trade and accords little priority to the health care and rehabilitation of these unfortuna