CHAPTER I

EFFORTS TO PREVENT TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN AND GIRLS: A PRE-STUDY FOR MEDIA ACTIVISM

1.1 : General Background

Trafficking in women and girls in Nepal is espoused with coerced prostitution in Indian sex market. It has attracted the attention of research scholars, policy makers, programme implementing agencies and media. It has also been a concern of government, social reformers, non-governmental organization and people in politics. A large number of women and girls are reported to have been trafficked to India each year by informal sources. According to different sources Nepali women and girls that have been trafficked to India and forced into prostitution number around 200,000.

Nepal has a long history of trafficking of girls and adult women. In the then Rana regime there was the prevalence of concubines in their palaces. Ranas used to keep a number of kept women and concubines from different parts of the country for their luxury and sexual pleasure. Ranas flew away to India after their downfall in 1050-51. The kept women and concubines also flew with them to India. The declining economic prosperity of Ranas living in India was not able to absolve these women in their places in exile. Hence the kept women and concubines were also out of these so-called places without economic security and social prestige. These women were being used as sex slaves in those palaces and they started selling sex in outside the palace for economic security and livelihood. Some of them even ran the brothels and started to recruit women from their areas of origins. Some of the reports have focused them as the initiators of the trafficking in women and girls in Nepal.

The other school of thoughts mentions that the Tibetan merchants used Nepal as a route in transit to India. They hired Nepali men and women for the construction work in the then the benefit of some of the Tibetan merchants. Gradually, it took a pace and more young women were recruited from Nepali hill and mountains to serve in the brothel run by these Tibetans. Later on, the Indo-Chinese war made these Tibetan merchants flew from India and they handed over the brothels to hill-mountains origin women. The Indian sex market got control of these women who were trained by the Tibetan merchants. In the meantime, these women themselves became the proprietors and owners of brothels and started to recruit young girls from the villages of their own origins. Subsequently, it became the initiation for the current trafficking in women and girls in Nepal.

The conventional model of trafficking related to some specific ethnic community with economic reasons at the top has been now transformed into new approaches of a blended effect of many background variables, viz., social, economic, political and administrative ones.

There are a number of documents related to trafficking prepared by the concerned individuals and organization within and outside Nepal. Many of them have mentioned the economic reason as a major factor determining trafficking in Nepal. Also, the ethnic-caste specific posture of trafficking is presented with some statistics by some studies, papers and media materials. Most of the studies conducted in Nepal and India lack to identify the pattern, magnitude and trends in the trafficking in women and girls in Nepal. There is completely the dearth of quantitative and qualitative information. Government recording covers a small proportion of prevalence. The print and electronic media have also a pretty good amount of coverage of this issue. There is also the provision of legal sanction against the crime. Some additional laws, policies and plans are also formulated to prevent the trafficking act in recent years.

There are several national and international, governmental and non-governmental organizations working on the issue of trafficking in Nepal and South Asia. A large amount of resource is spent every year in different activities. The best way to prevent the trafficking is to make people aware of the consequences. The role of media is enormous in this regard. However, there exists a communication gap between the places of origin and operation. Media can inform the networking and activities of criminals to the places of origin by establishing a two way communication to and fro vulnerable areas and urban operation centres. Additionally, media can play a role of pressurizing forces to adopt coherent policies and pragmatic programmes.

There is also a need to evaluate the current of trafficking by reviewing available literature and media coverage as well as the related legal provisions. Media itself has a pretty good amount of coverage of the issue, but it is also to be cross examined before suggesting practical options for prevention. This effort of reviewing the literature and media coverage would help to identify the problems and design a media activism to prevent trafficking.

The target group

The target groups of this effort include researchers, social activists, government and non government organizations working both in national and international spectrum. The prevention efforts and related to policy makers and common populace, so this study is to build foundation for a media activism, the media individuals and institutions are also included in its expected audience.

1.2 : Objectives

The ultimate goal of the effort is to support to the national campaign against trafficking in women and girls in Nepal.

The general objective of the this phase is to establish a rationale for media activism to prevent trafficking. Following are the specific objectives:

i. to review the studies and research related to trafficking in women and girls in Nepal completed by the individuals and organizations,

ii. to review both print and electronic media coverage on the issue of trafficking,

iii. to evaluate the plan, policies and legal provisions regarding trafficking in Nepal, and

iv. to recommend for a subsequent phase of media activism to prevent trafficking.

1.3 : Methodology

An almost sixty governmental and non-governmental organizations within Nepal and some organization in India and Europe were requested for the publications, research reports, and documents related to trafficking. Almost one third of them had positive response and others were followed later.

Since the trafficking of Nepal is seriously related to India and the study would not have been completed by ignoring the Indian studies. Therefore, ASMITA sent a team to New Delhi to collect Indian documents. Nehru Library's micro-film service was used to retrieve the documented information, the Times of India Library and Joint Women's Programmer's Library were also collected. The INGOs and NGOs working in the issue were specially requested to make available the documents they have produced. The National Commission for Women in India was contacted to avail the reports on the issue conducted in 1996-97 and before.

Review of the available literature in Chapter-II was previously planned to incorporate the conceptual approach of the material, hypotheses and assumption, methodology and information, analyses and conclusions of the study. As O'Dea (1993:iii) has correctly mentioned very little empirical research has been done in this area. Most of the studies were found unorganized and review is performed in descriptive form according to the topical areas.

The materials of print media were collected from some major libraries in Kathmandu for a period of ten years (1987-1997) for an analysis performed in Chapter III. A good amount of printed materials in newspapers were collected in Tribhuvan University Central Library. The collection of CWIN Library, American Library and Indian Library were also used.

Chapter IV used the audio-visual media materials collected from Nepal Television, Nepal Police, NGOs private Producers and Radio Nepal.

Chapter V reviewed the existing law, plan and police that were collected from the source of police and government offices as well as SAARC Secretariat. Policy related materials discussed in this chapter were collected from the Ministry of Women and Social Welfare and Nepal Police. International resolutions and declarations.

Finally, this report is basically a content analysis in descriptive form. Collected materials are reviewed on especially in terms of focus of the issue, information and data used as well the reliability and consistency.

1.4 : Limitations of the Study

Despite the efforts made by the team some limitations might be enumerated as following:

• Some reports, print and audio-visual materials might have been left in collection,

• due to the lack of appropriate recording in NTV and Radio Nepal it was difficult not only to acquire the material but also to find the total number of programmes related to the issue of trafficking,

• audio-visual materials produced by private sector had incomplete information and the related authorities were not possible to contact; some of them were reluctant to provide the cassettes, and

• different researches, papers and media materials were mostly unorganized and different frame; so that they were less comparable to each other.

1.5 : Organization of the Study

The introductory chapter presents the general background of the report. To evaluate the current status of prevalence as well as causes and consequences of trafficking there is a need to review the existing literature. Conceptually, such an effort establishes the foundation for further activities. Therefore, Chapter I is followed by the review of available literature on trafficking in Chapter II. Similarly, the existing print and electronic media need to be analyzed regarding their approach and presentation of the issue. That help formulate appropriate media strategy in the future for prevention of trafficking. Consequently, Chapter III analyses the coverage of trafficking issues in print media; and Chapter IV is devoted to electronic media. Chapter V deals with the law, plan, policy programmes regarding trafficking which is essential to be reviewed for a better policy formulation and programme implementation in the future. Each chapter presents the summary of findings, conclusions and recommendations at the end.