Human trafficking of all kinds is rife throughout Nepal and India,
but the most virulent kind is the trafficking of Nepalese women to the brothels of
Calcutta and Bombay.

There are currently an estimated 200,000 women and girls missing in Nepal, believed
to have been trafficked to India. They are 'sold' by their teachers, neighbours or
families, or lured by promises of a legitimate job in the city, only to find
themselves forced into prostitution. Only a handful ever return home, and those who
do often find themselves ostracised by their community, and are forced, yet again,
to sell themselves to survive.

Poverty is the key factor which makes Nepalese women and girls vulnerable to this
trade. Poverty leads women to respond to the lure of seemingly well-paid jobs in
India. In Nepal, women currently have a shorter life expectancy than men - an almost
unheard of phenomenon in the rest of the world. Jobs in India may seem appealing in
comparison to working in a carpet factory in a slum area of Kathmandu.

Poverty leaves four out of five Nepalese women illiterate; the inability to read
documents or road signs on their journey blinds them to the reality of their
situation until it is too late.

Poverty leads some women to agree to travel to India with the hope of sending money
back to the families they have left behind.

Oxfam is working to combat the trafficking of women with partner organisations in
Nepal - such as Shakti Samuha ('Group of Power') based in Kathmandu and Lalitpur.

The group raises awareness about human trafficking to school children, families and
community leaders, factory workers and passers-by in slum areas. One of the ways
Shakti Samuha attracts attention to this issue is by performing street theatre at
lunch-time outside carpet factories - where women are frequently targeted by
traffickers with false offers of lucrative jobs in the city. [SOurce: CRIN]

[Source: Oxfam. For more information, visit:
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/where_we_work/nepal/gender/traffic.htm]