Each year in Nepal, an estimated 10,000-15,000 girls are trafficked across the border where they are sold into Indian brothels and forced to become prostitutes. These girls range between ages 7 and 24, with an average age of 15.
Most of the girls are poor and come from villages where they are lured by false marriages, or the promises of employment or education. Many of them are sold by their families.
They are usually trafficked across the very porous Nepal-India border, with only cursory checkpoints. In their deception, the girls will often lie to border guards in order to cross.
These precious daughters are forced to have sex with as many as 40 clients a day. If they protest, or try to run away, they are beaten or tortured.
They are told that they have to “pay back” the price that they were bought for, though most of them have no real chance of being set free. Now they are indentured and are no better than slaves.
Traffickers deceive their victims by making false promises, including: Pretend-arranged marriages in another village ~ Fake marriages with the traffickers ~ Fake offer of a good job in India ~ Offer of a good education in India.
It’s one of the greatest injustices of all. Girls are regularly tortured and beaten. Girls are NOT allowed to refuse customers. Girls cannot contact their families.
It’s not just torture; it’s the worst kind of torture that occurs, day after day for years. They aren’t allowed to refuse any customer and eventually, they will contract HIV or incur illness from unsanitary abortions. When they are no longer beneficial to
the brothel owner, they will be sent back to Nepal or turned out into the street where they will be treated as social outcasts. Their families won’t want them. The community won’t want them. No one will marry them. Their lives are scarred forever.