Last evening I read a report by The Daywalka Foundation, Nepal, on their research conducted in March 2006 of male trafficker prisoners inside Kathmandu jails. Of the 4,153 prisoners nationally (90% male, 10% female), 252 were males who had been convicted for trafficking and 91 female. Although the purpose of the study was stated as being designed to explore human trafficking from a "holistic" point of view it was not clear why it should have been based solely on interviews with male prisoners. Nor was it clear why prisoners in the rural jails were excluded from the research.
The principal investigator was a lawyer, Adv Shyam Pokharel. The information he obtained from the prisoners was very useful in terms of how they had gone about their activities and the economics of buying and selling human beings. But I was really shocked at how in a detached way - as if it seemed perfectly normal - he reported on the use of physical and mental torture on suspects while in police custody. The former includes practices like handcuffing, beating, electric shocks, denial of water and solitary confinement while the mental torture ranges from abusive language to death threats to promises to parade the suspect's wife naked in public. Almost 73% of those interviewed reported some form of torture, with 15% of these indicating physical torture and the remainder mental torture.
That was all bad enough, but then I read of how the researcher's analysis (and he is clearly no fool) suggested that almost 17% of those convicted were probably innocent of any crime. They were more likely to have been in jail because of the denunciation of others due to a personal vendetta (common practice in Nepal) or because of a misinterpretation of evidence. The inmates concerned were considered too poor to be able to fight a legal battle to establish their innocence. Pokharel gave an example of four youths who had joined a young girl on a trip to India at the promise of "work" by an agent. They were stopped by the police and themselves charged with trafficking. The prosecutor asked the court to impose a 5-10 year sentence but the court in the end awarded terms of 2.5 years. Pokharel felt that the reduced term indicated that the court recognised that they were innocent! In another case report he tells of how an uncle denounced his nephew as a cross border trafficking agent following the uncle's wife leaving home after a domestic quarrel. The nephew received a 12 year prison sentence. One year later when the aunt heard about this (she had settled elsewhere in Nepal and re-married) she came to Kathmandu to set the record straight and secure the lad's release. However The Supreme Court ruled against her as an appeal should have been lodged within 70 days of his original conviction.
Rather remarkably, considering that the report has been written by a lawyer, it gives no indication as to what action (if anything) has been taken or should be taken over these apparent miscarriages of justice. While I haven't the slightest sympathy for legitimately jailed agents - I know only too well the consequences of their crimes upon children - I am appalled at the injustices that go with the conviction of supects and the subsequent lack of redress for those who have been wrongfully jailed. Of course in the West, those 73% who experienced some form of torture (if true) would have had their cases thrown out of court on the grounds of inadmissable evidence irrespective of whether or not they were really guilty.
Nepal needs some really good human rights lawyers who will stand up for the prisoners as well as for their victims.
