Women on the move

With her husband unemployed, it was difficult to manage the household expenses. Debt was piling up, and Sonika Sanjel saw foreign employment as her only way out.

“I was always fighting with my husband because we didn’t have enough to get by so I found a middleman,” says Sanjel.

The broker said she had to go to India overland and then fly to Kuwait from Delhi.

Having travelled far from home, first to Kathmandu and then to Raxaul in Birganj, she was ready to go to an even more unfamiliar place if it meant it would free her from financial trap.

Sanjel reached the border town of Belahiya in November, where volunteers deployed to control human trafficking became suspicious and questioned her. She told them she was going to Kuwait but could not produce the necessary documents. They were telling her she was being trafficked, when the recruiter disappeared. She is now at the Shanti Rehabilitation Home in Bhairawa.

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Nitesh Kumar Chaudhary heads the organisation monitoring human trafficking at the border, and says that the number of Nepali women being trafficked has increased significantly. “We have been stopping those we suspect,” he adds, “but some may have slipped through.”

Organisations working on migration and women’s issues in the area including the Peace Rehabilitation Center, Aafanta Nepal, Sana Haat and Shubha Avar Gram provided counselling to nearly 33,000 women at the Belhiya border crossing in the past year. Of them, nearly 800 women were trying to go to a third country to bypass a ban on women migrant workers.

Nepali women used to be trafficked to India to work in the sex industry, but the recruiters have now shifted to luring them to third countries. However, those going overland via India are also sometimes stranded in Mumbai and Delhi and sold to brothels.

So far, 15 human trafficking and smuggling cases have been filed at the district police office in the last five years. Deputy Superintendent of Police Suraj Karki also confirms that the number of women traveling to third countries overland through India has increased.

“There is an increasing trend of women travelling India on foot and then flying off to other countries from there,” says Sita Pantha of the group SAMI. “Those who take this route are at a much higher risk.”

Just on one day two months ago, 13 women were stopped at Belahiya checkpoint. Other checkpoints on this side of the border in Biratnagar, Birganj, Nepalganj, and Mahendranagar have also seen human trafficking cases.

Read also: Teach to fight trafficking, Stéphane Huët

Following some high-profile cases of violence against Nepali female workers in the Gulf, the Nepal government on the recommendation of the International Relations Committee of Parliament banned women from travelling to the region in 2016. But women continue to migrate in the absence of other livelihood options at home, often resorting to illegal routes and at much higher costs.

Gyanu Poudel of the Namuna Integrated Development Council that works in human trafficking and social awareness in Bhairawa says that the risk has increased since the government closed the legal route to migration.

“The government banned women workers from going to the Gulf because of abuse and exploitation but it did not give them an alternative either,” points out Poudel. “This ban should be reconsidered to ensure that women go through the legal route safely.”

Following the ban, middlemen are now using tourist visas to get women workers to the Gulf. Recruiters also pay immigration officials at Kathmandu airport to look the other way.

Sunita Pahari of Lalitpur reached the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on a tourist visa in August 2023. But unable to land a good job, she jumped from a building three months later. Nearly 300 female migrant workers have died abroad in the past 14 years.

The report by the Ministry of Labour also considers suicide as a major cause of death among Nepali workers in the Gulf and Malaysia. According to the report, 1,187 Nepali migrant workers have died by suicide in the same period. Of these, 10-15% are women.

Tikaram Dhakal at the Foreign Employment Board says that women who take a backdoor to the Gulf are undocumented and essentially illegal in these destination countries. Nepali embassies there do not have any information on them, which means they have no recourse in case of abuse or exploitation of any form, they are deprived of services and compensation of any kind.

Brokers who take women to India via land and fly them to third countries are known to lure unemployed people in the villages, tempting them with free visa and ticket. Sunita Ram of Jhapa received a similar offer. The broker also told her that she would earn Rs55,000 a month in Kuwait.

Ram made a passport soon after, and before long was at the Sunali border about to cross into India when she was stopped. She wasn’t arrested because the broker wasn’t with her and instead taken to the Peace Rehabilitation Center, from where she was handed over to her relatives.

Panchamaya Tamang from Sindhupalchok was also lured by a broker with an offer of a free visa and ticket. But when she was trying to cross the border, she was found without necessary documents, and without a middleman. She was sent back home.

Women going for foreign employment via India are between 20-35 years, most of them from ethnic and marginalised communities.

Gyanu Poudel of the Namuna Integrated Development Council cautions aspiring women migrants against tempting offers while also noting, “It seems that the brokers are targeting uneducated women from remote villages.”