With the joint effort of Lalitpur District Police Office, Legal Aid and Counselling Centre (LACC) and Child Workers in Nepal Concerned Centre (CWIN) has arrested a group involved in commercial sex exploitation of children. The organisations have decided to file a petition against the wrongdoers on Friday.

The guilty parties, who had been operating the business in Sanepa/Dhobighat at their own flats, were arrested on May 14 after a resident of Sindhupalchowk called CWIN helpline about the issue. It was also informed that the children who had been forced into prostitution were also rescued in the raid.

The offenders were 26-year-old Sumning Tamang, 25-year old Sonam Tamang, 32-year-old Jamuna Tamang and Kanchi Tamang, all residents of Sindhupalchowk VDC-1 and living in Kopundole.

Similarly, residents of Singhupalchowk, VDC-7 were 25-year-old Suresh Lama, his wife Shakurani Tamang and 50-year-old Sanga Tamang were living in Dhobighat-4. Also involved were relatives of Sushma Tamang, Maya Lama, Shyam Tamang, Chekyam Tamang and Bahadur Tamang.

Of the rescued children, three are in CWIN’s care. In the process of investigation and providing counselling to the children, it was found that a 15-year-old girl, resident of Sindhupalchowk VDC-3, had been lured to the profession by false promises of job opportunities as domestic worker in the city by Sushma and Sanga Tamang.

She worked as a domestic for Sushma Tamang for a month and was forced into prostitution afterwards. While the gang conducted the business in their lodgings, they also used to force girls to go to Chhauni and Swayambhu area for business.

The children were forced to have sexual relations with three to four people in a day and were given minimal amount of money received from the clients.

“We believe that this gang is linked to a much larger syndicate and we still have to catch hold of the main person behind these heinous acts”, said Gauri Pradhan, executive coordinator of CWIN. “We seek support from all parties to arrest the perpetrators and give justice to the young children who are lured into this profession with false promises.”

Assuring his support to help such children, Pradhan further said,” We abhor such operations that are not only violation of child rights, but also breaching of rights as a human being.”

He said that it has come to their notice that the gangs have close contacts with some high class members of the society and have networks abroad too.