Udham Singh Nagar emerges as major corridor for human trafficking from Nepal
DEHRADUN: The Udham Singh Nagar police on Saturday arrested three people, including a woman from a bus terminus in the city and rescued six women who were being trafficked to the Gulf nations to work as domestic help, police said.
The rescued women are Nepal national who had come from Tanakpur city in Champawat district bordering Nepal and were being taken to Delhi by the alleged traffickers, said senior superintendent of police (SSP) Udham Singh Nagar Sadanad Date. The vigil along the border with Nepal had been beefed up, he said.
“We have asked the anti-human trafficking cell officials to talk to girls who cross over into India from Nepal to find out if they are being trafficked by checking their antecedents.” The SSP further said that the local intelligence units have also been asked to step up vigil.
This is not the first time such a cross-border trafficking case has come to light. Women and minor children have been trafficked from the state earlier.
Three months back, a man was arrested at the Banbasa check post for trafficking three minor children to Delhi to work as domestic help. In June, police rescued 16 Nepalese women from the Indo-Nepal border near Chandi village while they were being trafficked to India.
The Uttarakhand police say they are aware of trafficking and have set up three anti-human trafficking cells in Kumaon region of the state in Champawat, Haldwani and Pithoragarh districts.
There has been a spike in cross-border trafficking following the April 2015 earthquake that devastated Nepal and left thousands of women and minors-- most of whom were girls-- vulnerable to trafficking. Thousands of children in dire poverty, particularly those living in Nepal’s border districts, are trafficked to India every year, said activists.
Most of the trafficked women and girls from Nepal end up as domestic help or as sex slaves in Indian metros like Delhi or taken to the Gulf nations on Nepalese passports, some of them said.
Gyanendra Kumar at “Empowering People Society”, an NGO, said they have been telling the state police about Udham Singh Nagar becoming a major corridor in the cross-border human trafficking from Nepal. “Interior areas like Sindhupalchowk district in northern Nepal--one of the worst-affected districts in the 2015 earthquake-- are the major sources areas of modern-day slavery,” he said.
“Women and minor girls are brought to Banbasa border from where they are made to cross the border and taken to Delhi. Traffickers keep changing transit routes to evade arrest.”
Impoverished Nepalese girls are lured with promise of good jobs, unaware of what misery awaits them once they land in the Gulf nations, said Kumar. “There is a charm of working in the Gulf countries and the impoverished parents are lured with promises of good jobs for their daughters.
“Once the parents are convinced by traffickers, most of who are fellow villagers or acquaintances, the girls are trafficked to Southeast Asia and the Middle East,” he said.
Deputy inspector general of police (Kumaon range) Puran Singh says that strict instructions have been given to the police to check human trafficking from Nepal and utmost vigil was being maintained. .