Suspects deny charges of trafficking and assault
Four accused of forcing maid to have sex 25 times a day
- By Bassam Za'za', Senior Reporter, Gulf News
- Published: 00:00 November 25, 2009
Dubai: Seven suspects have pleaded not guilty against a long list of different charges including sexually exploiting a housemaid, vandalising police cars and assaulting policemen who tried to rescue the housemaid from a brothel.
Prosecutors accused four of the suspects — two Emiratis, an Indian and a Bangladeshi — of forming a group of human traffickers and exploiting the Nepalese housemaid sexually by compelling her to have sex with 25 men per day in a place which they were charged of running as a brothel.
"I am innocent… I don't know anything about the whole incident. I have never seen the other suspects in my life," argued 29-year-old Emirati, A.O., when he defended himself against all charges at the Dubai Court of First Instance yesterday.
His 25-year-old compatriot, M.M., denied a charge of violating the human trafficking law by sexually exploiting the housemaid. "I deny any involvement in this matter… I dare the prosecution witnesses to come and testify that I did it. I am innocent," M.M. defended before Presiding Judge Al Saeed Mohammad Barghout.
Charge
The Public Prosecution charged A.O., M.M. and the Indian, H.H., and the Bangladeshi, F.S., along with a runaway suspect, named Aziz, with sexually exploiting the housemaid, L.J., and forcing her into the sex trade under duress and threats. The Emiratis were charged with collecting money from H.H. and F.S. to protect them.
A.O. and M.M. were additionally charged with stealing the wallet and mobile phone of one of the policemen, who tried to rescue the housemaid, after assaulting him. The 29 year old was solely charged with threatening to behead the policeman.
According to the arraignment sheet, A.O., M.M., their 26-year-old compatriot M.K., and 45-year-old M.A., who doesn't carry personal documents, were accused of assaulting the policeman and a corporal when they tried to free the maid from the alleged brothel in Al Hamriya.
M.K., A.O. and M.M. were charged with vandalising two police cars using sharp tools and hard objects.
The rest of the suspects, excluding M.K., were charged with running two flats as brothel.
The defendants pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The housemaid testified that H.H. picked her from the airport and took her to the flat where she was forced into prostitution.
"At first, I rejected and said I was hired to work as a housemaid.
"They beat and threatened me and forced me to have sex with 25 persons a day… until I used a client's mobile phone and told a friend of mine about my ordeal," alleged L.J.
25,000 Nepali girls involved in sex trade in Indian cities
Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata are the major destinations for girls trafficked from Nepal, the report said. The survey conducted by them found only 50,000 sex workers in the four cities and among them only 14,350 or about 29 per cent were Nepalese women.
India's sex market is the main reason behind Nepalese women and girls being trafficked there, Chhetri claimed. The study also revealed that in Pune alone about 50 brothels are owned by Nepalese women, in which 500 Nepalese girls are allegedly involved in sex trade. Girls Trafficking for Sex Trade from Nepal
Posted online: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 at 1406 hours IST
Kathmandu, October 4: About 25,000 Nepalese girls are involved in commercial sex in Indian cities, with Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata being the top destinations for traffickers, a new survey has claimed.
The estimate, however, is lesser than that projected earlier by many non-governmental agencies, who had put the number of Nepalese sex workers in India at more than one lakh, Anju Chhetri and Manju Chhetri, who presented the report at an interaction programme held here on 'Media activism for support to prevent trafficking in women and girls in Nepal,' said.
Abstract:
An estimated number of 5000 girls are trafficked and sold every year from Nepal to other countries for flesh trade, which spread out over 10 thousands brothels there in operation. Nepali sex workers who account for about 40% of the neighbors countries’ (especially in India only) total sex workers. The high demand of the Nepali girls are due to the Nepali girls having fair skin and charming Mongolian feature which is preferred to their dark skinned counterparts.
Various devises and pretentious are used by the agents in persuading the simple village girls giving allurement and expectation of happy life, full of pleasure and excitement and under the influence of which these girls follow them to other countries to be sold in various brothels. Tired of the discriminatory treatment given to girls by the parents and burdened under the incessant workload of farm and household together with the hardship of poverty in which no nice and adequate food and clothing are available to them it becomes quite easy for the agents (pimps) to sell them the expectation of better and enjoyable life, lucrative jobs, even the hope to be cine heroine.
The male family and relatives of the girls subsequently travel all the way to this country every 2-3 years to collect the girls' earnings. In the beginning, in spite of the girls' earnings amount to around Rs.10,000 a night she actually receives nominal amount from the brothel keepers. Excuses for the exploitation are made that the amount of loan which were used in their purchases had to be paid back etc. So often those from the families who go to collect the money from them but could not get it, they often get tussle and friction between them.
Conclusion:
If the government does not become firmly committed in it, more and more INGOs and NGOs do not come out with more and more resources and dedication in concerted manner, it is not impossible that the number of the victims should increased.
Background
Various devises and pretentious are used by the agents in persuading the simple village girls giving allurement and expectation of happy life, full of pleasure and excitement and under the influence of which these girls follow them to other countries to be sold in various brothels. Tired of the discriminatory treatment given to girls by the parents and burdened under the
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incessant workload of farm and household together with the hardship of poverty in which no nice and adequate food and clothing are available to them it becomes quite easy for the agents (pimps) to sell them the expectation of better and enjoyable life, lucrative jobs, even the hope to be cine heroine.
Various devises and pretentious are used by the agents in persuading the simple village girls giving allurement and expectation of happy life, full of pleasure and excitement and under the influence of which these girls follow them to Bombay to be sold in various brothels. Tired of the discriminatory treatment given to girls by the parents and burdened under the incessant workload of farm and household together with the hardship of poverty in which no nice and adequate food and clothing are available to them it becomes quite easy for the agents (pimps) to sell them the expectation of better and enjoyable life, lucrative jobs, even the hope to be cine heroine.
Some of the girls are assured of getting married in India, other get married in order to get them seduced. But when they get landed in Bombay and the girls find themselves sold and purchased and brought to Kamathipura, it get already too late to escape from there. Such girls are tortured into submission and locked into the room poorly feed and forced to entertain 20-30 customers every day. How long they could withstand that inhuman treatment done to them. However, sooner or later they gradually used to the trade.
Another scenario, which gives us, a picture is different from what has been mentioned above. Once they are accustomed in the sex trade they feel comfortable and enjoy life with more income, a part of which is taken away by their families back home to lessen the hardship of poverty and enhance their prestige in their village localities by paying off their debts, replacing the thatched roofs by the corrugated sheet and many other improvements in their life. These short of things are limited to a particular district like Sindhupalchok and some other districts. This kind of change has a demonstration effect on the people in the neighborhood who also make up their mind to send their girls to Bombay for a 'trade'. The families without girl wish to have the births of girl child.
The male family and relatives of the girls subsequently travel all the way to Bombay every 2-3 years to collect the girls' earnings. In the beginning, in spite of the girls' earnings amount to around Rs.10, 000 a night she actually receives nominal amount from the brothel keepers. Excuses for the exploitation are made that the amount of loan which were used in their purchases had to be paid back etc. So often those from the families who go to collect the money from them but could not get it, they often get tussle and friction between them.
In the Bombay's sex trade 47% of the prostitute are reported to have HIV positive. So we can easily take for granted that the same percentage of infection could be applied in case of Nepali sex workers. However 30-40% of them can safely be estimated to have infected. As soon as HIV/AIDS are identified in whom so ever of them, they are instantly forced to go back to Nepal and many a time they are left helpless at the Nepal-India border. If they wish to visit village homes they are generally not accepted back in the family for the reasons (i) that a girl once leaves home and stays away without the knowledge of the family for the four nights the society considers her as unacceptable back in the family, and (ii). They are generally suspected to have been infected with HIV/AIDS and take it for granted that her return justifies the same.
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In such a situation she has no other option left with her other than going to some other towns and starts the sex trade so that they can make a living to survive before disease topples then down to deplorable death.
There are other sex workers unaware and unidentified that they have infection usually visit their village homes once in a few years while working in India to meet their families. Although how many of them have infection is not known, so they are comfortable in the village. Some of them return to Bombay to their usual brothels, other starts their own brothel in Bombay leading to the increase of demand of new and fresh girls from Nepal. Some other returns home and stay permanently. A few of them might get married to start a 'respected ' social life.
Now assuming that 47% of those Nepali Sex workers have HIV positive and 10% of 50,000 thousand total Nepali sex workers (the lowest figure to come closer to reality) i.e. 5 thousand visit Nepal once in a few years. If 47% of them are infected with HIV/AIDS the number of the infected once comes to around 2350. So even if 25% of those girls choose to permanently settle down in Nepal and carry on their sex trade in one or other town and localities, the magnitude of transmission to their clients is obvious. Similarly any number of these girls, who get married, brings about the same disastrous impact on the spouses and their kids.
From what has been discussed above, the impact and magnitude of the spread of sex slave is enormous and posses a great challenge for a small country like Nepal where majority of the people is extremely poor, illiterate and ignorant. The socio economic conditions of the people in general particularly belonging to the urban areas indicate that the sex slave is certain to increase progressively in the days to come. Also the impact of increasing trend of urbanization, transmigration and intra-migration of the people may make the situation more dangerous.
If the government does not become firmly committed in it, more and more INGOs and NGOs do not come out with more and more resources and dedication in concerted manner, it is not impossible that the number of the victims should increased.
References:
1. A Study of the HIV/AIDS Awareness Program at North East of Kathmandu Nepal 1996/97 - HRS
2. Commercial Sex Workers in Kathmandu Valley, Their Profile and Health Status.
AIDS & STDs Prevention Network,
Dr. P Bhatta & Dr. S Thapa et al
Valley Research Group Kathmandu, Nepal, 1993.
3. Sexual Networking in 5 Urban Terai region in Nepal,
Cox T, Dr. B.K. Subedi
Valley Research Group (VARG). Kathmandu
8. A study on Socio-Economic Impact of HIV/AIDS in Nepal,
VARG, Kathmandu for UNDP, June 1993
More than 200,000 Nepali girls trafficked to Indian red light areas
Every month 7,000 Nepali girls are trafficked to India where they are forced into prostitution, the government has said.
A United Nations report on human trafficking just out said 79% of trafficking victims are sold for sex and the victims are mostly women and girls.
Altogether 200,000 Nepali girls have been trafficked to India, said Nepali state-run newspaper The Rising Nepal.
"We have a large number of Nepalese girls in India's red light areas,” Dr Govinda Prasad Kusum, Home Affairs Secretary said at the launch of the UN’s Global Report on Trafficking in Persons on Friday.
“Controlling traffickers is proving troublesome because we share open borders with India and traffickers have a dozen ways to cross borders without being noticed," Dr Kusum said. Apart from India, Nepalese girls have also been trafficked to Gulf countries, Malaysia and China's Hong Kong, but the number of Nepalese girls in these brothels is unknown.
According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) the report is the first global check on the scope of human trafficking and what is being done to fight it. It looks at trafficking patterns, legal steps taken and specific reports of trafficking, victims and prosecutions in different countries.
"The number of convictions for human trafficking is increasing, yet in most countries the conviction rates rarely exceed 1.5 per cent, that is 100,000 people. The report clearly shows that the most common form of human trafficking is sexual exploitation which makes up 79% of the victim population, and the victims of sexual exploitation are predominantly women and girls. The second most common form of human trafficking is indicated to be forced labour at 18% which is less frequently detected and reported than trafficking for sexual exploitation," said Deepika Naruka in Delhi, who helped put together the report.
Worldwide, almost 20% of all trafficking victims are children, the report said. And in some parts of the world this proportion is much higher. Children are abused for begging or exploited for sex as prostitutes, paedophilia or child pornography. Others are sold as child brides or camel jockeys. The exploitation of children is the most dramatic aspect of the crime. On the plus side, a large number of traffickers have been convicted in both India and Nepal, according to the report.
There are now seven SOS Children communities in Nepal which are home to more than a thousand children and young people as well as a variety of social, medical and educational facilities providing much-needed help and assistance for local communities.
Written by Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children
