Trafficking on Samunnat’s doorstep
We love to bring you news about the wonderful things that the women of Samunnat are making. It is a great story. But we also want to bring you stories that explain why Samunnat Nepal exists in the first place.
A big part of Samunnat’s work is educating women and girls about the dangers of trafficking. Many of the women who come for help have been damaged by this trade. You might think that the warning messages were well-known by now. But the forces that drive trafficking - poverty, poor education, unemployment, discrimination against women, organised crime, etc - haven’t gone away. The India-Nepal border is one of the busiest human trafficking gateways in the world. Around 30,000 women and girls are trafficked every year.
However, trafficking doesn’t just happen across land borders. Kopila has been confronted by another all-too-familiar case of trafficking, this time by air. Lakhi Murmu came to see Kopila a few days ago. She had heard about Samunnat from a previous client. Lakhi had been seeking help from police and local government for three years. No help came. She told a horrifying story. Her 30-year old daughter, Kamala, was being held hostage by a gang in Iraq. Three years ago, Kamala had begun a journey to Oman with 3 other women. They had thought they were travelling to employment there. En route, in Dubai, they were diverted to Iraq under false pretences. Since then, the only contact that Lakhi has had with her daughter has been an occasional recorded phone message, crying and screaming while talking about the terrible conditions she is facing. These brief messages have not helped Lakhi to understand what has happened to her daughter and what kind of work she is doing.
Lakhi Murmu with her granddaughter. Acknowledgement to RSS. https://myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com/news/nepali-woman-held-hostage-in-iraq-for-three-years-mother-pleads-for-rescue/
Kopila immediately rang her journalist friends and contacts. They placed a story in the local paper and this quickly found its way into a national online paper, Republica. You can read more detail in the story here. We have spoken with Clare Bartram from our partner organisation, Project Didi, and have been able to pass some useful contacts on to Kopila.
Kopila desperately hopes that by bringing this story to national attention, Kamala and Lakhi will finally get the response that they deserve. She is determined that Samunnat will continue to educate women and girls about the dangers of trafficking - ongoing dangers that are all-too real.