Poverty, Trafficking and Victimized femininity

Poverty, one of the forms of deep rooted structural violence, has led gender violence up to its utmost level through sex trafficking in nearby district of capital city.

Inger Skjelsbaek and Dan Smith in their book “Gender, Peace and Conflict” have portrayed the conception of victimized femininity for the pain borne by Croats and Bosnian women during Balkan war, where thousands of women were raped by Serbian. Here, it is about the plight of the girls in Ghyangphedi, Nuwakot, about 100 kms from capital city. Many differences can be easily seen between two places in every aspect of development, awareness, health, sanitation, etc. more precisely, in every aspect of the factors that determine HDI (Human Development Index).

“Nepal’s lost daughters, India’s soiled goods”, by Tim McGrik won’t be relevant in terms of its circumstances; it would rather apposite as “Nepal’s sold daughters, India’s soiled goods”. Almost the majority of the area of Ghyangphedi is plagued by the practice of flesh trade for their subsistence. The food production hardly lasts for a quarter of a year; people here have to depend on an external source for living. And to the utter disagreement of every conscious citizen, they’ve been following the practice of sex trafficking as per their source. People surrounding the place won’t regret saying the scenario as a “well established tradition”, which has been into practice over the long period of time.

Especially, in the Tamang majority neighborhood, almost every household holds the case of their daughter, sister being sold in the brothels of Bombay or Kathmandu. And to the greatest shock, own family members are involved in it. A recounting of a tamang man from Ghyangphedi clearly suggests that, they eagerly wait for their daughters to get mature enough to exchange them for money.

And the plights of girls/women don’t only last with lost rights but end up with deadly disease of AIDS as fueling the undesired fire. There are many cases of AIDS victim returning to their village after getting infected.

If somebody goes there and talk about the matter, they hardly welcome people as such. Also, as if cat has taken their tongue, they hardly tell anything regarding sex trafficking.

Many NGOs, humanitarian organizations including Red Cross and local bodies are involved in raising awareness against the flaws of trafficking and its consequences of deadly disease (AIDS). But still the trend hasn’t stopped yet. I, personally think the effort is not enough as far as awareness is concerned. There has to be adequate programs of economic development which can come handy to seek alternative for sex trafficking--generation of economy. Also, researches and studies have to be made to bring up the issue in forefront, which till date is very lacking.

(Based on a chat with people of Samundratar VDC and ghyangphedi VDC, Nuwakot)