Trafficking Of Nepali Girls And Women To India's Brothels

Tilak P. Pokharel
Worldpress.org contributing editor
July 26, 2004

“Seeing Raza (Mohammad Khan) handcuffed and jailed gives me eternal satisfaction.” This is exactly what 14-year-old Nepali girl Manju Lama (name changed) told Worldpress.org who was trafficked to the Great Roman Circus in Gonda, India -- one of many districts where only local gangsters have their say -- from her Maoist rebel-infested home in the Makwanpur district of Nepal sold there last year for $432 by a Nepali broker and neighbor. The police, the administration and the locals in Karnailgunj (an area of Gonda), are at the mercy of local dada (gangsters) like Raza, the circus owner. Hence, Raza had “eternal freedom” inside the circus to do whatever he liked with the circus girls – 90 percent of them are minor Nepali girls.

Flanked by BBA activists and parents, Nepali girls in Great Roman Circus in Gonda India

Acting on complaints from parents of eleven missing Nepali girls, the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), meaning “protect the childhood movement,” led a team of human rights activists, journalists and parents to raid the circus and rescue the Nepali girls and children on June 15th.

BBA chief Kailash Satyarthi, who has been active in child labor issues in the past, sustained serious head injuries and several parents of the trafficked Nepali girls were hospitalized by the attack of gangsters. The group managed to take only one Nepali girl Manju out of the “hell” that fateful afternoon.
The parents of the other ten Nepali girls and children were in despair and began losing hope of ever getting their daughters back. “When I took hold of my daughter’s hand, Raza’s henchmen attacked me with sharp weapons from behind and took her away,” said heartbroken Bishumaya Moktan through tears.

One of the India's Brothel

Raza and his accomplice Shafi Khan were arrested and booked on rape charges Of Nepali girls and kids working in Circus. While Shafi has been released on bail, Raza is still being tried in a local court.
After a 24-hour ultimatum to the Indian President A.P.J. Kalam, Prime Minister Manamohan Singh and chief of the Uttar Pradesh government Mulayam Singh Yadav demanding the immediate release of the “trapped” Nepali girls and children in the circus and action against the police personnel and district authorities, nothing was done.
Satyarthi, in an act of desperation to save the young Nepali girls, staged a fast-unto-death on June 18th.
Bishumaya and Janak Lama – two mothers of the kidnapped Nepali girls joined Satyarthi in fasting. “It’s high time Nepal look into the issue,” Satyarthi told me on June 20th. “The Nepali girls in the circus have been perpetually raped. It’s a blatant violation of basic human rights of minors. It’s an irony that the authorities are doing nothing.”
On June 21, Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba told a delegation of the rights activists that “he didn’t have any idea” about the incident. Local activist Gauri Pradhan said PM Deuba knew about the incident from the press reports and yet nothing had been done on a diplomatic level. Indian Ambassador to Nepal, Shyam Saran told the same delegation that India was ready to hand over the Nepali girls to their parents. On the same day, there were several protests in Kathmandu and other major Indian cities.
Renowned Indian actress Nandita Das joined a rally in New Delhi. In the meantime, fasting Satyarthi received constant phone calls from Raza’s men threatening to take his and other activists’ life “for attempting to free the Nepali girls and children”.

A campaign was launched by Satyarthi to free all Nepali girls exploited in all Indian circuses.” According to Govind Khanal, a Nepali activist working with BBA, there is about 50 circuses harboring Nepali girls in India. In April, they rescued about three-dozen Nepali girls from a circus in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Khanal said about 2,000 Nepali girls are still living hellish lives in the circuses.

Positive Outcome of the Movement:

Heeding the pleas pouring in from activists from all corners of the globe, Nepal sent an envoy to Gonda on June 24th. The Gonda district authorities handed over twelve Nepali girls to him, and subsequently they were repatriated to Nepal on June 26th.

“Kailash Satyarthi, the president of the Global March Against Child Labour and Bachpan Bachao Aandolan, who risked his life to rescue these Nepali girls, is a true hero,” The Kathmandu Post [Nepal’s national daily wrote in its June 28th editorial. The article went on to say, “Though some state agencies were hand-in-glove with the circus owners, he staged a hunger strike making the release of these Nepali girls possible. All Nepalese should be grateful to him…This tragic incident has once again proved that time-tested people-to-people relationship between the citizens of the two countries is much more vibrant and dependable than the state-to-state relationship. It took so long for the Indian government to act on it.”

However, the fate of the ten missing Nepali girls was still unknown. The Lucknow High Court asked the State’s police chief to present the missing Nepali girls to the court on July 7th. The Nepali girls were medically examined and produced in court on July 23rd. The parents of these missing Nepali girls are hoping their girls will be released to them after a hearing scheduled for July 27th.

Nepal’s governmental role will be crucial in rehabilitating the Nepali girls, and joining hands with the BBA who has declared that their focus for the next year will be to rescue and rehabilitate Nepali girls exploited and abused in Indian circuses.