Girls Rescued from Nepal's Child Trafficking for Sex Slave Trade

In Nepal, between 10,000 and 15,000 women and girls around the age of 9 years old are abducted or sold into sexual slavery in India, according to the US State Department. Nepal and Bangladesh provide the main supply of trafficked children in South East Asia and the practice is possibly the busiest slave traffic in the world. Human trafficking is one of the fastest-growing and most lucrative industries in the world.

Nepalese girl children are sold by family members who believe they will be given employment. But instead they are sent to India where they are locked up, starved, burned with cigarettes, beaten with wires, rods and hot spons, and raped until they learn how to service the requisite number of clients a day.

Geeta, a young Nepalese girl who is courageously speaking out today, had that experience. She was sold by a family member who persuaded her almost blind mother that Geeta would get work in a Nepalese clothing company. She was taken to India at age 9 where she "worked" for 5 years, being raped 60 times a day.

When she was 14, Geeta was rescued and brought to a Maiti Nepal safe-house run by 61 year old Anuradha Koirala. Anuradha was one of the founders of the Maiti Nepal, an organization which was founded in 1993 to "fight against all the social evils inflicted upon our female populace". The main focus is to prevent trafficking of young girls for forced prostitution. Anuradha has been working for 16 years, rescuing and rehabilitating victims of the vicious predatory trade.

Maiti Nepal currently has 400 rescued children, and not one of its rehabilitated victims has ever returned to prostitution. The organization also provides legal counseling and criminal prosecution for victims.

Geeta was given love, protection, psychological and medical attention, and when she was ready, an education. She has joined in the fight against the sex-trafficking trade. That she has survived and been able to create a meaningful life for herself is nothing short of a miracle. It is testimony to her incredible inner fortitude, and the dedication of Anuradha Koirala, Maiti Nepal and all those who work for it.