Kathmandu, July 22

Police have rescued a woman being trafficked to Kuwait via Dubai and arrested three human traffickers from the Tribhuvan International Airport.

Those arrested by Metropolitan Police Crime Division yesterday are Krishna Bahadur Rana, 56, of Syangja and Khadga Bahadur Bishwakarma, 24, of Jhapa and currently residing in Gongabu; and Dillishwor Limbu, 43, of Terhathum and currently residing in Koteshwor.

According to MPCD, the victim was lured with the promise of a decent and lucrative job in Kuwait without work permit.

The trio had assured the women of free visa and free ticket. Officials said many women are trafficked to Gulf countries and forced into slavery and prostitution. Rana, Bishwakarma and Limbu have been handed over to Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu, to initiate legal action against then under Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act, 2007.

According to National Report on Trafficking in Persons 2015/16 recently released by National Human Rights Commission, most human traffickers enter into fake marriage with the victims and use own relatives as agents to transport them.

The MPCD handled 674 complaints of 2,342 victims from across the 35 countries in the fiscal 2015/16. Evidences of human smuggling were reported widely in 2015/16 to several countries, including Macau, UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Portugal, Dubai, Qatar, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and India. MPCD registered several complaints and many of them were related to human smuggling, which later ended with trafficking.

The number of trafficking cases registered with Nepal Police, however, is still low against the believed number of trafficking victims. In the fiscal 2015/16, it registered a total of 212 cases of human trafficking in which there were 352 victims. Four in 10 victims were children; more than 95 per cent victims were females and three among four victims did not have education at all.

Drawing on the NGOs interventions, including the rescue efforts of MPCD Kathmandu, Nepal Police and foreign embassies to Nepal, the estimated number of trafficking victims comes to about 23,200 in the fiscal 2015/16 in Nepal. It provides an estimate of 6,100 persons as trafficked; 13,600 persons as victims of attempted trafficking; and 3,900 persons as missing, said NHRC.