SWIFTLY & RESPONSIBLY
The Kathmandu Post
17
June 2016
SWIFTLY & RESPONSIBLY
As long as the government’s handling of the
reconstruction programme in the quake-affected areas remains slow, vulnerable
children and women will continue to fall prey to trafficking. Many children and
women have disappeared from their homes during the last one year. Some of them
were rescued from the Nepal-India border points by the security forces (“73
children, women rescued from Birgunj in 3 months” 15 June, Page 1). However,
if the rescued children and women are not properly looked after by their
families, who are themselves homeless and vulnerable due to the killer
earthquake, the chances of them falling prey to trafficking again will remain
high.
According to a UN estimate, about 15000
girls from Nepal are trafficked into Asian countries for
sex trade each year, which is an extremely unfortunate matter. If these data
are reliable, several questions and concerns can be raised. What are the
government and its concerned machineries doing to stop this heinous crime? What
are the INGOs/NGOs involved in children and women development programme doing?
What are the so-called social, political and human rights activists doing from
stopping the girls and women falling into prey of the human traffickers? There
must be innumerable ways of controlling this inhuman act if the concerned
authorities and agencies show their commitment and sense of responsibilities.
This heinous crime can be minimized. if not
stopped, if the concerned local government in coordination with the VDC based
NGOs, political activists, youth clubs among others launch massive awareness
campaign penetrating right down to the household level making the parents and
guardians aware of the problem of human trafficking. As the porous border with India is part of the problem, the districts
bordering India need to set up a separate security forces
to control the human trafficking. Likewise, a special security force needs to
be assigned at the Tribhuvan International Airport to stop the girls and women from being trafficked
to other countries. It is high time the concerned central level government became
serious about the issue and acted swiftly to save its vulnerable citizens from human
traffickers.
Rai Biren Bangdel
Maharajgunj
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