Women Apathy: False promises

2 (a). Trafficking in Women

 Organized crime is basically accountable for the spreading of international human trafficking, sex trafficking—along with its correlative elements such as kidnapping, rape, prostitution and physical abuse, which is illegal in nearly every country in the world. However, widespread corruption and greed makes it possible for sex trafficking to rapidly and effortlessly proliferate.

Trafficking in women is an escalating problem that involves both sexual as well as labour exploitation of its victims which is affecting all regions of countries in the world and has received an increasing global attention over the past decade. No doubt, both men and women may be victims of trafficking, but the primary victims worldwide are women and girls, the majority of these are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation and to some extent domestic servitude. Traffickers primarily target women because they are disproportionately affected by poverty and discrimination, factors that impede their access to employment, educational opportunities and other resources. Where this is the sole focus of advocacy and assistance, there is also a revelation that women, children and men are trafficked into many different forms of labour.

   Perhaps the strongest factor for this is the desperate economic situation, which impacts the availability of satisfactory employment in many countries for women more severely than for men due to which women may be trafficked from one country to another country at any given time. And, these women and girls being vulnerable are tricked and coerced into sexual servitude. It is also seem that many of the poorest and most unstable countries have the highest incidences of human trafficking and extreme poverty is a common bond among trafficking victims. Increased unemployment and the loss of job security have undermined women's incomes and economic position too.

  Perhaps the strongest factor for this is the desperate economic situation that impacts the availability of satisfactory employment in many countries for women more severely than for men due to which women are trafficked from one country to another country. And where the economic alternatives do not exist, women and girls being vulnerable are tricked and coerced into sexual servitude. Many of the poorest and most unstable countries have the highest incidences of human trafficking and extreme poverty is a common bond among trafficking victims. Increased unemployment and the loss of job security have undermined women's incomes and economic position.

  Women may become victims of trafficking when they seek assistance to obtain employment, work permits, visas and other travel documents etc. Traffickers prey on women's vulnerable circumstances and sometimes even bait them into crime networks through deceit and false promises of decent working conditions and fair pay. Women go abroad with a notion that they will work in the sex industry, but without awareness of the terrible work conditions and violence that accompany the trafficking business. Other women who go abroad for different jobs such as dancers, waitresses, and nannies etc. find themselves held against their will and are forced into prostitution and sexual slavery. In the destination countries, they are subjected to physical violence, sexual assault and rape, imprisonment, threats for the extraction of organs or tissues, including surrogacy and ova removal or for providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage and many other forms of coercion. The women live with fear and mistrust after abduction if some are released after months in captivity grace the news and they return home battered, abused, infected with diseases and often pregnant.

  

  The most recent example is of Nigeria, where approximately 300 girls, who wanted to become global leaders, teachers or lawyers in a region where only four percent of girls complete their secondary schooling, were kidnapped by Islamic extremists while going to school. These girls are reportedly set to be sold into marriage to militants.  According to the Associated Press reports, the Nigerian Government, non-profits and citizen activists are scrambling to help these students, some of whom have reportedly died from snake bites and contracted illnesses and ever since there are certain reports that these girls may have been sold into marriage or sexual slavery also. The International Crisis Group estimates that the al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group has killed more than 4,000 civilians in Nigeria since it began its insurgency four years ago; it perpetrated seven attacks on girl’s schools in 2013, according to Amnesty International. In actuality, these girls are those human beings who are marginalized, exploited and ignored globally.

 Crimes against women and girls are not only common, but they go often ignored, unprosecuted and unreported by the international and domestic media every single day. Beyond the difficulty of figuring out how to categorize and handle such cases, this is an enriching title of debate for media, news etc. who are prepared to go on discussing something as harrowing as this. Things like sexualized violence against women and girls seems to be always just the wallpaper as it’s just there and people expect it to be there while we manage that through a whole series of euphemisms in conversations and the media.This act in essence is not dissimilar to how the Syrian government has used women as targets of punishment in war, allegedly perpetrating rape on women and girls in front of their husbands or sending videotapes of rape to families as a means of humiliating them in order to show their supremacy. Both such cases show the degraded thought process of treating women as objects that can be used by any other man for their personal gains.

In Egypt, two teen-aged cousins were kidnapped and then sold in 2011 as part of ongoing strife between Coptic Christians and Muslims at the time. In Darfur this March, pro-government militiamen kidnapped four young women in the southern Hijer region and then raped them in front of local villagers, according to a local radio station.

The New York Times reported in 2011. The newspaper cites victims, aid workers, and United Nations officials as saying that the group was "seizing women and girls as spoils of war, gang-raping and abusing them as part of its reign of terror in southern Somalia."

The most famous example of the armed force using girls as spoils of war, according to the United Nations, is that of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, which kidnapped nearly 600 girls and boys to be used as sex slaves between 2008 and 2011. UNICEF estimated that 12,000 children were abducted by the LRA between 2002 and 2004 alone and were forced to fight, work, or be used for sex. Colombia's armed conflict, while officially over, continues to take the lives of young girls in forcible recruitments by militias. UNICEF reported in 2011 that more than 31,000 children were rescued from militias in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or escaped from them in the previous seven years. And there is just no counting for the hundreds and hundreds of girls abducted and trafficked as spoils of Mexico's drug war.

Right now, where, the world is scrambling to help the Nigerian girls as the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has promised to extend full possible support to the Nigerian government, there the impunity for sexualized violence and crimes against women and girls is allowed to continue. Countries that have high levels of such violence are much more likely to move into a larger conflict for it might then be prudent to focus on prosecuting crimes against women and girls.

Trafficking primarily involves exploitation which comes in many forms, including: forcing victims into prostitution, subjecting victims to slavery or involuntary servitude and compelling victims to commit sex acts for the purpose of creating pornography.

Many other instance of the trafficking of children in different places of the world has been seen, but as you delve into this issue of the abduction and selling of girls, you will realize that this is much beyond imagination.

Women and Girls is a Commodity: Human Trafficking in Nepal

According to, the Diplomat, Kiran Nazish’s reports from Kathmandu, sex trafficking is always a growing problem in Nepal too. In 2009, a fourteen year old was picked up from Pokhra, taken to a camp in an unknown location where she was forced to live without food for three days and she was raped multiple times by more than a dozen men. She was then taken on a long journey across the border, with no visa checks, eventually sent to Delhi. In the same way there are many others who were brought to India and are still being brought. Most of them when get pregnant or give birth to babies are then sent back to Nepal. As abominable as it sounds, this is the story of thousands of women in Nepal.

According to some NGOs, 12,000 to 15,000 girls each year are trafficked from Nepal across the border where they are sold into Indian brothels and forced to become prostitutes. Most girls who are trafficked are from very poor families from villages where they or their families are lured by false marriages, or the promises of employment or education.

According to human rights activist Danielle Cevis, “They are usually processed through Kathmandu on their way to the Nepal-India border, where they face a very meagre checkpoint. They and their traffickers are not required to show a passport, residence permit, or visa as they cross into India. When they reach their destination at a brothel in an Indian city, it is then that they come to know the bitter reality of their fate.”

Gang-rapes and beatings are a common practice in the world today and it is more shameful when the victims are imprisoned in cages and then tortured to ensure their future compliance. Most of these innocent girls are even forced to have sex with as many clients a day. And if they show any sign of protest or attempt to escape is observed, this brings them more torture along with irrational beating.

Many of these girls catch diseases such as Sexual Transmitted Diseases (STD) and AIDS etc. UNICEF reports that approximately seven thousand women and girls are trafficked out of Nepal to India every year, and around two lakh are presently working in Indian brothels.

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                                                                                                                                  To be contd. ……..

                                                                                 2(b). Women abduction & Honor Killing etc.