Kathmandu, January 26

The Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police has arrested 13 persons, including five convicts, so far this fiscal for their involvement in human trafficking under the guise of sending the victims for employment.

According to a report of CIB, the web of trafficking for worst forms of slavery and sexual exploitation has gradually spread to African and Latin American countries and is not limited to the Indian cities of New Delhi and Mumbai.

On January 9, CIB arrested Pravin Giri, 29, and Pradeep Giri, 28, of Syangja and Gyanendra Adhikari, 46, of Jhapa. SP Jeevan Shrestha, CIB spokesperson, said that they had collected Rs 850,000 each from several victims assuring them of ‘visa to European countries’.

The victims were left to fend for themselves for over two months without employment in Turkey before returning home.

Chitra Prasad Dhungel, 35, of Morang and currently residing in Kathmandu was apprehended on December 30 for trafficking unemployed youths to South Africa under the mask of an educational consultancy with the promise of lucrative job and better life. He allegedly collected more than 700,000 each from the victims, who were subjected to mental and physical torture there.

CIB busted a human trafficking racket operating under the cloak of manpower and travel agencies in Kathmandu on October 17. The cops swooped on the racket after 16 persons rescued and sent home by International Organisation for Migration and United Arab Emirates-based Non-Resident Nepali Association National Coordination Committee from UAE filed a complaint with CIB against the alleged racketeers.

Those nabbed by CIB were Ishwor Bhandari, 38, of Baglung, Birghaman Gurung, 27, of Gorkha; Raju Ghale, 31, of Gorkha and Bhanu Dhakal, 31, of Kailali.

SP Shrestha said the manpower and travel agents trafficked the victims to UEA on tourist visa with the assurance of a lucrative job there. “The racketeers had collected Rs 200,000 to Rs 500,000 each from the victims with the promise of an attractive job in Dubai before sending them abroad on tourist visa. No foreign citizen is allowed to hold any job in UAE without obtaining work permit and thus the victims were deemed to be illegal and rescued,” SP Shrestha said.

Similarly, Satishman Nyachho, 32, of Lalitpur; Bhagyaman Tamang, 39, of Nuwakot; Mahendra Gurung, 41, of Gorkha; Shankar Lama, 54, of Kathmandu; and Hari Bahadur Pandey, 44, of Lamjung arrested by CIB were convicted of human trafficking or foreign employment fraud.

CIB warned that many unemployed youths, women and girls were being trafficked out of the country under the cloak of foreign employment, marriage and abroad study.

Bearing this in mind, it had launched a massive crackdown on the suspects. Human traffickers have been capitalising on the geophysics of the country, lack of employment opportunity, low education level and poverty to lure the victims, it said.