Kathmandu, April 19
Government officials have painted an alarming picture of human trafficking, saying that it has been going on unabated in the name of foreign employment.
They said human trafficking has been ‘thriving’ in the absence of monitoring of and action against manpower companies at fault. The officials were speaking at an interaction on directives on sending domestic workers abroad for jobs, in Kathmandu on Tuesday.
Radhika Aryal, joint-secretary at the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, said middlemen were selling women from villages like animals. Thanks to weak monitoring on the part of government agencies, these middlemen are selling women abroad by preparing and showing fake papers.
SSP Sarbendra Khanal, chief of the Metropolitan Police Crime Division, said human trafficking has been going unabated in the name of foreign employment.
The government has imposed a ban on sending women to Gulf countries and Malaysia as domestic workers, in view of increase in cases of sex abuse against them as well as physical and mental torture.
Stakeholders said middlemen are trafficking women to these countries via India, despite the ban. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a huge number of MRPs, but a negligible number of Nepali women are going abroad by acquiring labour permit, the officials said, adding: This points at an alarming picture of women trafficking.
They demanded increasing jail term and fine against human traffickers, so as to control human trafficking.
