This is with reference to the news story “27 rescued Nepali women return home” (THT, Aug 5, Page 2). The 27 women who were being trafficked to Dubai were rescued from New Delhi with help from Indian authorities. The women aged 20 to 40 were handed over to the Nepali authorities.

It is shocking to learn that many Nepali women are still trafficked to India and these days in the Middle East countries despite massive campaigns launched by various organizations working in the field of protecting girls/women. Although girls/women are lured by false promises of getting better employment opportunities in foreign lands most of them end up as sex workers. Demand of the Nepali women working as domestic help in the Middle East is high. But they face sexual exploitation by the employers and their relatives and some of them return home being pregnant or mentally traumatized after being sexually abused. What the government and the social organizations need to do is to expedite awareness campaigns in the rural areas from where illiterate women are lured by agents with false promises of a better life in the countries where women are allowed to work. The social organizations should utilize the local FM radios to raise awareness about the possible sexual exploitation of the women once they go for overseas job. The culprits should also be punished for deceiving the innocent women and forcing them into immoral activities.

Karuna Uprety, Kathmandu

Take action

CPN-UML CA member Prakash Jwala and others have demanded strong action against those CA members who have threatened to divide the country if the new constitution is declared without finalizing the boundaries of the federal units, or without the Tarai-Madhes being totally separated from the hills and mountains. I am not sure that the CA-II would have that courage to take action against those CA members who have openly threatened to split the country if Madhes was not made a separate Pradesh. Instead of raising such noisy demands, Jwala and others should have questioned the very essence of the 16-point agreement that planned to promulgate the new constitution without carving out the federal units with their boundaries. It was wrong on the part of the four major political parties to reach the agreement that shelved the issue of boundaries of the Pradeshes. They should have first amended the Interim Constitution if they wanted to declare the new constitution without the boundaries. The Supreme Court had issued an interim order to promulgate the constitution only after demarcating the boundaries of the federal units and their names. Now the major parties have realized the fact that it is quite impossible to deliver the new constitution without settling the issue of boundaries and naming of the Pradeshes. They should not have taken any decision to deliver the new constitution without finalizing the boundaries of the federal units and they should have also taken the Madhesis and other Janajatis into confidence before reaching the 16-point agreement.

Megha Nepal,Kathmandu