Selling and buying people

Human trafficking is a global phenomenon that is driven by demand and fuelled by poverty and unemployment (UNFPA 2006). According to the UNFPA, four million women, children and men are trafficked globally in a year. South East Asian and South Asian countries are the homes of the largest number of internationally trafficked persons.

Photo: Umita form Lalitpur District in Nepal Red Cross posing for a Anti Human Trafficking Campaign in Norway when she was a Youth Delegate in Norway 2 years ago.

The situation in Nepal
It has been estimated that every year around 12,000 Nepalese girls and women are trafficked to India from Nepal. According to a report of Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, around 40,000 girls are working in cabin and dance restaurants in Kathmandu. Out of them, half are victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking. Nepalese girls and women are highly demanded in the sex industry in India.



Nepal Red Cross' work
Norwegian Red Cross is funding six districts in their work to enable youth to combat HIV, trafficking and social discrimination. A special project for me as a Youth Delegate in this setting is the project in Dhading district, just north of Kathmandu, which is supported by the Norwegian Red Cross Youth. In Dhading the focus is on early warning, giving knowledge to the poor people living there on how they can get information on their employer and anti stigma. The project is mainly focused on youth age 12-25, as they are the people in the risk zone of being trafficked in this area.


Early intervention
In Dhading, Red Cross is responsible for selling of the application form for passport as an income generating activity. While people come at Red Cross to ask for application form for passport, an information package consisting of anti trafficking,
HIV prevention, tips for safer migration messages will be provided to them. This prior information may help to the applicant to assess risk of migration, nature of job and reliability of the sending company which eventually may help to take appropriate decision for migration.

“Røde Kors Ungdom” in Nepal
Norwegian Red Cross Youth supports the project in Dhading. This year’s project is mainly funded with the help from two schools in Norway’s fund raising campaign, namely Børstad and Sarpsborg Ungdomsskole. The project was started by the first Youth Delegates in Nepal, and all the delegates have been following the project at some point or another.

Our work so far
We have been so lucky to visit a anti human trafficking project in Palpa, the annual review and planning meeting for these projects last week and this weekend we had a workshop at our own district in Lalitpur, to get started with focusing on the problem in our own district. This is new work for both us and them, but we had a very good workshop where we did both a small baseline survey and introduced a few low budget activities to the 18 youth participating. We have already scheduled a second meeting to plan the implementation of their ideas in their Youth Circles, and I have to say is both inspiring and motivating. I'll update you as soon as I can! :)

Photo: The participants at the workshop interviewed people in the streets of Patan to get an overview of what people knew about the problem. They also asked if they thought this could be something that might affect their family and what should be done to stop the problem. The answers were used when we worked on the individual project proposal for each Youth Circle.