Kathmandu massage

The most common search words on Google that lead researchers to my blog are "Kathmandu", "Nepal" and "massage". For some reasons the sex tourists never use the words "prostitute" or "brothel". So for those visitors to this post who are considering to travel all the way to Nepal for a "massage" I thought I would post a picture of the kind of facility to expect; these salubrious premises are just around the corner from my home. If this doesn't make you review your plans then reflect upon the circumstances of the girls who are involved in the "massage" industry. They are often coming from desperately poor village areas and broken homes to be ruthlessly exploited by pimps - oops, proprietors. And if that doesn't bother you particularly you might be interested to learn that many of the girls who have been trafficked to India into the sex trade are sent home after they contract HIV. They duly enter the domestic sex trade and carry on their activities out of desperate need for an income.

Maybe best to stay at home?

South China Morning Post

I understand that following journalist Ivan Broadhead's visit to Nepal a couple of weeks' ago a feature about cross border trafficking was due to appear in today's South China Morning Post (Hong Kong's largest English daily). I gather that it was expected to be cover story in the Sunday magazine which, if this is the case, would echo what happened almost seven years ago when the Trust's work received identical coverage. At that time it gave us a dream start as a charity for the story moved sideways, being syndicated to the UK's largest broadsheet, the Daily Telegraph, where it became cover story in the weekend section (see the link below "My Interview with the Daily Telegraph"). The mailbag after that was published was phenomenal and many of those who wrote to me at that time are still with us today as loyal supporters.

I am hoping to be given permission to publish today's article as a transcript on our website as it is powerfully written. The story opens with Ivan recounting the experience of one young man who went to India as a teenager to end up tricked into the Bombay sex trade. Before he managed to escape he was sodomised by an estimated 30,000 men. Stories of such violence are not unusual in our beneficiaries either. Nor is the final insult - rejection upon return home. When this young man finally made it back to Nepal he was beaten up by his brothers for bringing shame onto the family. Circus returnees can also expect at best little sympathy from friends and family.

I am reminded of how Esther told me that when she was a social worker her Dutch Jewish clients would tell how upon returning from the concentration camps would be greeted by their neighbours with comments like "I thought Hitler had finished you off".

Hanuman Dokha Police Station

I have spent most of today "watching the paint dry" in this central Kathmandu police station, but it has been time well spent.

On Sunday we received a call from our Indian partner, ChildLine India, that a girl trafficking agent, two other adults and three girls had been picked up by them at the railway station in the northern Indian border town of Gorakhpur. The group, all Nepalis, were on their way to Mumbai, from where the girls would be sent on to the sex trade in Kuwait. We agreed to their call for help immediately and last evening Shailaja CM, Director of our Nepal partner organisation, Esther Benjamins Memorial Foundation, took a flight to the border crossing near Bhairahawa. There she linked up with the ChildLine co-workers and the trafficking party to begin a seven hour road journey home. They got back to Kathmandu at 2 a.m. The adults went straight to the jail at Hanuman Dokha Police Station while the girls went to our Godawari refuge.

It appears that the two adults in the group were a father of one of the girls and a husband of another. They were accessories to the work of the female agent, who is notorious for operating out of the southwestern Rupendehi District. She protects herself with threats of violence from the Maoists, with whom she claims to be associated. We felt that if we tried to register a case against her in her home district it would most likely fall between the floorboards as relatives - or possibly local Maoists - might intimidate the police into not pressing charges. The key would be to get the case registered in Kathmandu first (away from threats) and then transferred back to Rupendehi District for prosecution. The case would then be followed up from Kathmandu in due course. Today we seem to have been successful in our aim and the group will appear before a Kathmandu Judge tomorrow morning before being sent back to Bhairahawa.

It is actions like this that make the greatest impact against trafficking. I suspect that there are quite few major agents responsible for the trade in human lives and taking them out of circulation would turn off the flow almost overnight.

I look forward to the outcome of the hearing tomorrow. Chances are that the individuals who were due to send their beloved daughter and wife off into the sex trade will get off eventually but I can just about cope with the reality of that if the agent is put away for life.