Global Issues

Nepal

• Estimated 7,500 women from the country were forced into commercial sexual exploitation in other countries and increasingly within the country in 2010.

• Source country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking. Some Nepali women and girls subjected to sex trafficking in Nepal, India, and the Middle East.

• China is an emerging sex trafficking hub for Nepali girls.

• On March 21, 2010, police beat 13 journalists reporting on demonstrations by local residents demanding action against a police officer for raping a newlywed bride.

• Women subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor in other Asian destinations, including Malaysia, Hong Kong, and South Korea.

• Trafficking, domestic violence, dowry-related violence, rape, and sexual assault remain serious problems.

• Traditional beliefs about witchcraft negatively affected elderly rural women and widows.

• Shamans or other authority figures publicly beat and physically abused alleged witches as part of exorcism ceremony.

 

Advocacy:

• Charimaya Tamang and 15 other survivors established Shakti Sumaha, an anti-trafficking NGO. She received a national honor for her work in 2007 and is currently one of two trafficking survivors serving as members of the government-led National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking, which was founded in 2009.

 

Sources: U.S. Department of State 2010 Human Rights Report, U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2011; Human Rights Watch World Report 2012