Kathmandu, March 6

Lokman Rai, one of the human traffickers in police’s ‘wanted’ list, was arrested in January 2018 on charges of smuggling dozens of Nepalis to Turkey and swindling millions from them. After 12 days, the court released him on a bail of Rs 1 million as police could not furnish evidence to prove him guilty.

The 43-year-old was again arrested in June on charges of extracting millions of rupees from 15 Nepalis on false promises of finding them well-paid jobs in Libya. Although the court is yet to rule on this case, police are sceptical of seeing him behind bars, thanks to ‘toothless’ Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act.

Nepal is solely relying on the law introduced in 2007 to control human smuggling. But it convicts human traders only if victims are forced into prostitution, are literally sold, their organs are removed or if they are taken hostage by their ‘owners’.

Since the crime committed by human smugglers such as Rai does not meet these legal criteria, courts generally set them free, said Superintendent of Police Govinda Thapaliya, who is deputed at the Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau of Nepal Police.

Human smugglers generally offer decent employment and wages as baits to lure victims. These victims often borrow money at high interest rates to

pay the smugglers in advance, hoping overseas employment would improve their living standards and help them support their families.

Those who actually find decent jobs with good wages abroad do not complain. But most of the time victims are left stranded in transit countries or find themselves in a situation contrary to what was promised to them. This is when most of them reach out to the police.

“The victims who lodge police complaints find it difficult to prove their case in the court because they cannot gather evidence to show they were actually smuggled and sold in a foreign country. And since the existing law does not recognise human smuggling attempts as crime, many human smugglers walk free,” said SP Thapaliya.

The Office of Attorney General’s records lend support to Thapaliya’s statement.

In fiscal 2017-18, 170 human traffickers faced court cases, but only 43 were convicted and 65 were acquitted. The remaining traffickers were either

released on bail or saw their cases pending that year. In the same year, 221 human smugglers faced legal prosecution of whom 72 were found guilty while 69 were released.

The number of human traffickers and smugglers who are taken to the court is much lower than the number of human trafficking and smuggling cases reported in the country as many victims do not lodge police complaints.

In October 2018, for instance, Nepal Police, with the help of rights activists and Indian police, rescued 147 Nepali women and 39 men from Manipur, India, as they were allegedly being smuggled to Gulf countries via Myanmar. Indian police arrested Asha Kaji Lama Tamang, 42, Rajiv Sharma, 38, and Madan Kumar Kharel, 52, on charges of illegally transporting Nepalis. But the trio claimed they were also victims like 186 others.

The police were expecting the victims to expose the perpetrators, but no one did. Even if the victims had spoken up, existing legal provisions would have barred the court from convicting the alleged smugglers. This is because the victims were rescued mid-way, meaning they could not have proven they were actually smuggled and sold in foreign labour destinations.

“What we need is a law that criminalises attempts made by perpetrators to smuggle people. Otherwise, interventions made to intercept suspected human smuggling attempts will not bear fruit, because victims, who were rescued mid-way, can never prove that they were smuggled,” said SP Anupam SJB Rana. He added, “Many western countries have legislations to that effect.”

Auchyut Kumar Nepal, deputy director of Maiti Nepal, a NGO that is fighting human trafficking, especially forced prostitution, echoed Rana’s views. “Presence of stringent laws that penalise people who try to smuggle or traffic humans will only help the country fight the menace of human smuggling and trafficking effectively.”

Gyanendra Poudel, spokesperson for the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens, said, “We are well aware of the situation and are working to introduce new laws as suggested by stakeholders and law enforcement agencies.”