THE TRAFFICKING OF GIRLS FOR SEX
Every year thousands of young Nepali girls are trafficked and subjected to physical, mental and emotional trauma, and economic and sexual exploitation. An estimated 12,000 girls, some as young as 10 (average age 15), are trafficked annually across the border into India where they are sold to brothels and forced to become prostitutes. Nepalese girls are highly prized in Indian brothels for their beauty, lighter skin colour, and the persistent myth that having sex with a virgin or younger girl can cure STDs and AIDS.
Thousands of teenage girls and young women are also trafficked and sexually exploited within Nepal itself. Many are sold and beaten, intimidated and sexually abused by their owners or employers, who force them to work in brothels, dance bars, cabin restaurants and massage parlours for a subsistence wage. Sometimes the girls cannot leave until they recruit a replacement, and in so doing, they themselves become traffickers. Their terrible shame and distress is compounded by risk of client violence, HIV infection and STDs, and stigma and discrimination in their families and society. It is extremely difficult and potentially dangerous for victims to escape this cycle of abuse, and the Golden Angel Emergency Shelter could literally be saving the lives of rescued children and women.
DOMESTIC SERVITUDE AND DEBT BONDING
Around 7,500 children are trafficked domestically for commercial exploitation. Traffickers can earn up to £400/$570 for every boy or girl they supply. Some victims are sold into domestic servitude where they are often abused, some are debt-bonded to brick kilns and other manufacturing industries, or forced to work in sweatshops, hotels, bars and restaurants, while many more work in agriculture. About 80% of all trafficking victims are girls.
THE TRAFFICERS AND HOW THEY OPPERATE
Traffickers typically source their victims in the poor rural areas of Nepal where unemployment is high and standards of education low, but recently they have also been actively seeking earthquake orphans and children from homes that lost their main breadwinner in the 2015 disaster. Their methods range from forcibly snatching, drugging or coercing their victim into cooperating, to false marriage, and posing as aid workers or recruiters promising work or education either in Kathmandu or abroad. Sadly, in some cases impoverished parents, relatives or acquaintances are knowingingly complicit in the deception, and facilitate the trafficking of children and young women for money.
WHAT WE DO
ONE GOLDEN ANGEL'S primary focus is the rescue, support and rehabilitation of trafficked and exploited children and women. Our groundbreaking Golden Angel Emergency Shelter, the first of its kind in Nepal, offers a lifeline to trafficking victims. We also work closely with locally based NGOs committed to combatting trafficking, gender based violence and cultual malpractices. By supporting One Golden Angel you will be helping to rescue and support girls who are being sold right now...and setting them free!
PLEASE HELP US COMBAT THIS EVIL AND PROVIDE SHELTER AND NEW HOPE FOR VICTIMS
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