Kathmandu, September 18

Over 1,200 Nepali women have migrated to Korea after marrying Korean men. Some of these women have become victims of fraud and deception.

Mismatched marriage, marriage with people with disabilities and old men and marrying in  remote areas have been reported, said the National Report on Trafficking in Persons in Nepal, 2018 released by the National Human Rights Commission recently.

Till the fiscal 2014-15, marriage registration of a woman with a foreigner was done only from Kathmandu District Administration Office and marriage visa was granted to such women. This system, however, resulted to widespread irregularities in marriage registration due to the involvement of multi-layered agents, including marriage bureaus and agents. To eliminate such irregularities, the Government of Nepal now allows marriage registration from the same district from which citizenship certificate is issued.

The report warned that there were also correlation between education consultancies and human smuggling. According to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology there are about 2,500 education consultancies across the country. One thirds of these consultancies are running illegally. Officials at the ministry claimed that they had received complaints about cheating and human smuggling. They reported that consultancies prepared fake documents for study abroad so that they could receive and sell foreign currencies.

According to sources at Metropolitan Police Crime Division, there is massive misuse of No Objection Certificate by the consultancies agencies/agents for money laundering. The MoEST officials reported that more than 32,000 students received NOC annually and students planning to study language, hospitality and hotel management are more likely to become victims of human trafficking.

Evidences suggest that Nepal is not only the country of origin of human smuggling and trafficking, but it has also become the country of transit for human smugglers.