“It’s all about food, fun and dancing. You don’t have to pay; they will offer you money instead.” This is what Shrijana Biswokarma, a resident of Jhapa Rural Municipality-7, Sharanmati, was told by a person who was her sister by relation. “But you have to go there without telling anyone about it,” Shrijana was told.  Shrijana accepted the offer without a second thought.

In 2020, when she was 15 years old, she followed the ‘sister’ without telling anyone in the family and reached India. And she began to dance in an orchestra named Puja Musical Dance, a dance house managed by one Bikash Risal, a resident of Pathari, Morang, who said Urlabari was his maternal uncle’s house, where he claimed he was raised.

She returned home after dancing in the orchestra for two months. “There were other women too and as I was young everyone loved me. Yet, I felt empty there and did not want to stay there any further,” she recalled. “I told my ‘sister’ who took me there to take me back home but she ignored my request for two months. It was only after two months I was able to return home.”

Shrijana is one of the performers who experienced severe exploitation. Orchestras are performed not only in cities across along the India border but also in rural areas of India. In those orchestras, often staged during weddings and cultural ceremonies, women are forced to wear short and revealing clothes and perform sensual dances. Most women perform such dances not out of their will but out of compulsion, coercion and enticement. Incidents such as denial of wages, beatings and abuse, physical and mental torture and even sexual exploitation take place in orchestras. Nepali women are taken to and even trafficked to orchestras.

Shrijana is one of the girls who faced all of the above. We requested her to speak to us after learning that she had gone through extreme exploitation. We assured her that we would make people aware of her ordeal by writing her stories but we would not mention her name and address. However, in due course of our conversation, she gave us permission to use her real name so that other women would come to know about the hardships that she had to go through and they would not be trafficked like how she was to the orchestras. The story she narrated to us was harrowing. 

Before going to India to work in the orchestra, Shrijana used to work with the ‘sister’ in a restaurant based in Sundhara of Kathmandu. Her monthly salary was Rs 12,000 but after the onset of Covid-19 and the subsequent nationwide lockdown, businesses came to a standstill and she returned home on a bus that was arranged to take people to their respective hometowns. Initially, she was put into a quarantine facility. Back home, she had no work to do and the same woman offered her a job whereby she could earn money by dancing. She met Bikash, the owner of the orchestra, when he was in Nepal during a holiday. Bikash said he would pay for their (Shrijana’s and the sister’s) accommodation in Damak for a day and also give money for the bus fare. She willingly agreed.

Crossing the border by evading security checkpoints

On August 28, 2021, Shrijana and Sita, without informing anyone at home, took a night bus to Birgunj from Jhapa and reached there at dawn, where a man in a motorbike was waiting for them. He put them in an e-rickshaw and took them across the border but not through the main border crossing and through another route. According to Shrijana, there were three women, including Bikash’s wife. 

Bikash had offered Rs 3,000 per performance in one wedding. Shrijana agreed to it and started to work but soon the wedding season came to an end and there was not much work to do. According to Shrijana, Bikash’s wife returned to Nepal with a friend after her relationship with him turned sour.

But Shrijana stayed back in India with Bikash and it was then that she started to face a series of exploitation. “Bikash entrapped me in love and promised to marry me. We then started to live together and I became pregnant,” she said. “Bikash had affairs with other girls as well. When I protested, he hit me on my head, almost breaking my skull. Whenever I said I wanted to return home he would lock me up in a room,” Shrijana broke down as she narrated her story of horror.

On March 1, 2022, the Palanwa police of Motihari raided the orchestra in Saunaha Bazaar in Bihar and arrested Bikash. He was jailed for seven months before he was released.

The women, including Shrijana, who were rescued by the police lived in a children’s home under the jurisdiction of Bariyarpur Police. Two-and-a-half months later, on May 19, 2022, Maiti Nepal rescued them and brought them to Birgunj where they lived for two days before being taken to Kathmandu.

Shrijana at that time was pregnant for five months. Bikash would often call her when she was in Maiti Nepal. “He would say that he would accept me and treat me properly. He would also say that he would stay at home and not go astray.

He often said he would go abroad for employment, earn and take care of me and our daughter. This is how he would coax me,” said Shrijana. Bikash’s uncle came to meet her and said ‘even if he does not care about you, we will take care of you. I will take the responsibility.’ Legal professionals at Maiti Nepal were going to file a rape case against Bikash but Shrijana did not agree to it. “I did not want to abort the baby and when he was released from jail, I decided to live with him and left Maiti Nepal,” she said. “This was the biggest mistake of my life.”

Bikash, whom she trusted so much, did not accept her after he was released from jail. He began to accuse her of infidelity because of one half-naked video of hers.

One day a boy named Golu Singh had threatened to kill her and he made her undress and recorded a video. “That was during my early days in the orchestra. A sister I worked with was friendly to Golu who she called her as a brother.

One day he asked me to undress by saying that he would shoot me if I did not and throw my dead body into a river and nobody would come to search for me from Nepal,” Shrijana spoke of how he threatened her. “So, I bared my breasts. I did not know he was recording the video,” she said. Golu Singh, who Shrijana says is in jail on murder charges, then made the video public. This reveals how criminal gangs also use orchestra workers as a tool to rob them of their dignity.

Bikash said he refused to accept Shrijana because of that video.

Shrijana feels that she has been repeatedly betrayed and she has been through a lot of injustice. “He ruined my life and now lives with other girls,” said Shrijana, who is now raising her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter all by herself. “It is very distressing for me. They won’t give me a job because I have a small baby. Life has become very tough.”

Bikash, meanwhile, says he is ready to take the responsibility of the daughter. During a phone call he said, “Even if Shrijana keeps the daughter with her, I will help her. If she does not want to raise and nurture her, I will bring the baby and take care of her.” Bikash admitted that he got dragged into the orchestra work due to the bad company and his immaturity during his youth. “Looking back, I think I did not do the right thing,” he said.

Shrijana advises all not to go to dance in orchestras “even by mistake.” “They make you dance on a pickup truck. You have to keep dancing even if your legs hurt. They make you dance to very obscene songs,” Shrijana said. “If they don’t like your dance, they come to threaten you with guns, abuse you and hit you with whatever is close by.”

Big promises, little pay

Among others to be rescued on March 1, 2022 along with Shrijana were Rupa (name changed), 18, from Sindhuli and Anita (name changed), 14, from Kavrepalanchok districts. Anita, the eldest of the three siblings in a family of wage laborers, used to help her parents at their work. One day, she came in contact with one Rambabu Yadav who said he was from Birgunj. She was introduced to him by Sanju (name changed) who had known Rambabu through Facebook. Rambabu said he ran the Kapya Musical Dance in India and they (Anita and Rambabu) started to talk over the phone. One day he enticed both Rupa and Sanju by saying that they will get Rs 3,000 a day for dancing in India.

So, on December 25, 2021, Rupa, together with Sanju, sneaked out of the village without telling anyone about it. They left via Sindhuli and reached Birgunj, where Rambabu was waiting at Birgunj Powerhouse Chok. He took them across the border through a track road on a motorbike. “He had said that we would be working in Nepal but we learned that the location was in India only when we reached there. We saw a board that said Kapya Musical Dance,” said Rupa.  “Rambabu dropped us in our rooms and went home. There were no weddings and celebrations for the whole month. So, we stayed in the rented rooms,” said Rupa.

Later two other Nepali women were brought there and they started work from February when the wedding season started. But he paid them only Rs 1,500 per dance in one wedding instead of the promised Rs 3,000. "When we asked why we were getting paid half the pledged amount, he would say we were still learning how to dance better and that he would give us the promised amount once we had learned how to dance,” said Rupa. But they did not have regular work and so whatever they earned was spent on buying clothes for the dance, makeup kits, mobile phones and the food they loved to eat.

The owner only provided them food two times a day and accommodation.

Anita, along with her brother, was studying in a school in Bhaktapur. But she did not like to study and dropped out when she was in grade 8 and ran away from home, after which she started to work in a café in Boudha where she was paid Rs 1,200 as monthly salary. After working there for around a year, she along with two other girls, left for India without telling anything about it to their parents. They reached ‘Kapya Musical Dance’ via Bhairahawa in February, 2022. Like Rupa, Anita was also paid only Rs 1,500 per dance. One of the girls who had gone with her quit after two months and returned to Nepal. All this while, however, Anita was still in touch with her family through Facebook messenger. Anita’s father came to know one day that Anita was not in Kathmandu. He then asked her to return home immediately. “He asked me to return home immediately. He said that if I travel beyond Hetauda, I would be sold in India,” said Anita. But she could not return home. “The owner did not give permission. He said that if we returned home during the wedding season, he would not pay our dues,” said Anita. She was thus impelled to stay back. The plan was to send them home by the end of March but they were rescued much earlier after the police raided and rescued them. 

Violence at home, rape in orchestra 

Sabina (name changed), 25, from Morang studied only up to grade three. Her father went to Qatar for foreign employment and her mother made a living by working in the fields and sewing clothes. Sabina helped her mother in both her work. Amid this, she met a man named Rahul with whom she became intimate. Rahul proposed to her which she accepted, and they soon committed to a physical relation and she became pregnant. Rahul then started to avoid her and finally went out of contact. They tried to search for him but in vain — he had given her wrong details and they never found him again, after which her parents married her off to another man. The first few weeks went well but when the baby boy was born, Sabina’s husband, who was a tailor by profession, became addicted to drugs and began to beat her. 

While working in a hotel in Biratnagar, she met a woman named Priti (name changed) who one day told Sabina that there was a job in Adapur of Bihar and if she wanted to take it up. “You need to babysit and do the household chores. They will pay you Indian rupees 10,000,” Priti told her. Sabina decided to take up that offer. As agreed, she went to Priti’s house. “I was offered tea at Priti’s house and after drinking that tea I cannot remember what happened to me later,” said Sabina. “When I regained consciousness, I realized I was in the middle of a jungle. There were 15 to 16 other girls and some of them were crying.” 

Sabina not only had to dance in the orchestra but also had to feed the children of the owner and do all the washing and cleaning chores. Whenever she refused to wash the blood-stained undergarments of the owner's wife due to menstruation, she was hit with a ladle and wood. “We had to wear short skirts and dance. If we did not do what they said, they would beat us. We had to bear with a lot of exploitation,” she said. According to Sabina, even Indian police personnel would come there for sex and they would pressure her to have sex with them which she never agreed to. One day, the owner’s wife tied both her hands and legs and sent men inside her room. She saw no way to save herself. However, she managed to escape from the room after several attempts. As she was escaping toward Nepal, the Sasastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel at the border stopped her and handed her to Afanta Nepal, an NGO. 

Under the veil: Orchestras in Bihar and UP 

There are hundreds of orchestras across the Nepal border in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Mostly, the affluent in the villages stage such orchestras to flaunt their influence and dominance. Arati Kumari, who is the district project coordinator of Prayas- a juvenile center based in East Champaran, Bihar, said the proliferation of orchestras is because the people in villages derive entertainment from such orchestras as they have no access to cinema halls and shopping malls like in the cities. The organization she leads had rescued one Nepali and other Bengali women by raiding Krishnapur Orchestra, based in Adarpur, in coordination with Indian Police in 2021. She said orchestras started to proliferate in Bihar in 2010. “Orchestras have to be registered with the Labor Resource Department of the district but many run the orchestras without registering them because it makes it easier for them to exploit the women and girls,” said Arati. 

During monitoring, the National Human Rights Commission of Nepal has found several incidents related to transportation and trafficking of women and girls towards India take place. Girls and women from the hills are transported across the border, in the name of shopping, medical treatment, buying goods, attending religious ceremonies, among others. Some men conduct fake marriages with women to be transported and others are brought to this channel through acquaintances made through Facebook and Imo, says the NHRC’s National Report on Human Trafficking 2022. 

Arati Kumari said that orchestras in recent times have become like hell for women, with more and more obscene and immoral activities taking place every day. Orchestras in rural villages are known as stage performances with semi-naked dances, which have made dancing in orchestras an undignified profession, said Arati Kumari. As the dance performance is taking place, males swarm upon the stage, dance with the girls, put money inside the women’s clothes and attempt to kiss them. And this happens while hundreds of people in the audience are watching, said Arati Kumari. 

Birendra Sah, Associate Professor and Chief at Department of Sociology in Thakur Ram Multiple Campus, Birgunj, argued that orchestras have no relations with our traditional cultural practices and that it is a Western import. “We have duet songs in hills and Kawali in Madhesh. Things like Sat Sahelia and orchestra came much later and this heavily influenced our traditional culture,” said Sah. “When you stage ‘Hare Ram Hare Krishna’ (hymn) performance, few people come to watch it, but when you stage orchestras hundreds of people come to watch it.”

In the past, we had Baiji dance, the orchestra is an extended form of the same, according to journalist Chandrakishore. “The affluent and rich in the past would bring the Baiji team and make them perform behind closed doors. Such dance would be obscene and sexually stimulating. In orchestras, they use DJs and the dance is performed in public. This is the only difference,” he said. “This has now been linked with fashion and jobs, and anomalies and deviation have come to be synonymous to orchestras.” 

Nepalis land into this sector with no dignity and social respect by falling into different alluring enticements. 

Kabita Thapa’s research report, which she conducted while doing her PhD in the Department of Psychology in Kumaun University in 2021, mentioned that Nepali women are taken to India in the name of cultural programs and are later sold. The research report entitled ‘Risks of Human Trafficking in Nepal’ mentions that Maiti Nepal’s Birgunj chapter rescued 12 women from orchestras in Motihari and Bagaha areas of Bihar from 2016-17. These rescued women were trained for a week and made to perform lewd dances in semi-naked bodies. Thapa’s report mentions that these women were housed in huts where men came during the nights and sexually abused them. 

Siblings from the same family trafficked 

Two women from Jhapa went missing and when the District Police Office Parsa conducted a search in coordination with the Indian Police, they were found in an orchestra run by one Rajesh based in Chhaudadano Police Post area. Then a team led by Maiti Nepal and District Police Office in Parsa rescued four women on July 25, 2021 and they were subsequently brought to Nepal.

The rescued women were Laxmi Das, 20, from Birtamod, Jhapa; Khusbu BK, 19, from Itahari, Sunsari; Inarwa (A), 20, and Inarwa (B), 16 (A and B were used as codes by the police while filing their cases). Inarwa (A) and Inarwa (B) are siblings — whose ancestral home is in Bhojpur Deurali and whose mother was already dead. The father could not raise four daughters, hence, Inarwa A and Inarwa B were kept in the care of a woman who by relation was their ‘grandmother’ in Jhapa. They lived in Jhapa, worked at the grandmother’s house and went to school as well.

They soon became friends with one Laxmi through Facebook. In due course of time, they got connected to one Khusbu. In July, 2021, they met Laxmi and Khusbu in Birtamod who enticed them with the offer that they could earn Rs 1,500 a day by dancing in Birgunj. Inarwa A and B were allured to the prospect of earning Rs 3,000 a day. So, without telling the ‘grandmother’ they ran away on July 18, 2021. Laxmi and Khusbu were waiting for them.

Sitaram Das, 55, and Rina Das, 48, were both at home. On July 19, the six people, including Laxmi’s parents, reached Itahari from Birtamod. From Itahari they took a night bus to Birgunj and arrived there on July 20.

While they were eating breakfast in an eatery, someone called on Laxmi's mobile phone and they decided to meet at Gadhimai temple. They, then, took an e-rickshaw to the temple where they met four men on motorbikes, and all four women were transported by motorbikes, while Laxmi’s parents traveled by e-rickshaw. “That day, we all stayed in the same place. We later learned that the place where we were was in India,” said the sisters. The Das sisters left them there and returned to Nepal. The sisters were sold for Rs 25,000 each in India to an orchestra owner. 

Inarwa A and B say there was a Bengali woman named Kajal whom everyone called Sahuni, a lady owner. She cooked food and served them while the sisters did the dishes. “Kajal told us that we need to learn dancing and we will have to go out on August 1. She took our mobiles away. Four days later, a Nepal Police team reached us, rescued us and brought us back to Nepal,” they said. Police filed a case of human trafficking and transportation against Laxmi, her parents (Sitaram Das and Rina Das) and Khusbu in District Court Parsa on July 27, 2021.

Sitaram and Rina are at large at the moment. Following a court order, Laxmi Das has been imprisoned at Birgunj Prison and Khusbu has been sent to a child rehabilitation center. Inarwa A and B are in a rehabilitation center, according to Maiti Nepal. District Attorney Office Parsa in its complaint submitted to the District Court has demanded that Kajal, who lives in Chhaudadano, India, her husband Rajesh Thakur, Rahul Yadav (alias Prabhat) and two other unidentified men should be arrested. Kajal and Rakesh are orchestra managers. According to Amrit Mishra, information officer at District Court, this case is sub-judice at the moment. 

Into the orchestra with babies  

Four persons were rescued on December 9, 2021 from the ‘Sushila and Rinku Orchestra Group’ run by Nanda Kishor Sah and Ruby (his wife) who hail from Lakhaura Thana, Motihari, India. Those rescued were Nita (name changed), 18, her three-year-old son, and Urmila (name changed), 20, and her four-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

Nita’s family lived in Birtamod of Jhapa in a rented room. Nita’s father, who was in foreign employment, married another woman and lived abroad. Nita’s mother also married another man and left home, after which Nita started to live with her grandmother, along with her brother and sister.

Nita had a love marriage and she and her husband worked in construction sites. One day a girl named Puja, who by relation was Nita’s sister-in-law, proposed to her if she wanted to work as a dancer. Puja said that there is a club in Motihari run by her friend and Nita would have to dance during wedding ceremonies. Puja also said that they would teach Nita how to dance and pay 1,500 Indian rupees a day.

Nita was convinced.

At that time, Puja’s brother-in-law (husband’s brother) was embroiled in a motorbike accident case and was in prison. She cajoled his wife, Urmila, too. So, on November 6, 2019, Nita (with her eight-month-old son) and Urmila (with her 18-month-old daughter) followed Ruby, who took them across the border via Raxaul. Ruby had taught them that while crossing the border if anyone asked them where they were going, they would have to say that their sister’s (Ruby) relative had passed away and they were taking her there for mourning. Ruby had warned them that otherwise they would not be allowed to cross the border. So, they finally reached Belagaun of Chhaudana in Motihari district where Sushila and Rinku Orchestra was located. 

Nita and Urmila were paid Rs 10,000 each in advance, which made them think that their owner was a good man and they started to work. When they were away during work the owner, himself, would look after the children. But all this was a wrong impression. Later, as Nita recalled, he stopped paying them salary, prohibited them from going home and talking on the phone with relatives. He held them hostage and started to inflict physical and mental torture on them. There were two other women who said they were from Birgunj but Nita and Urmila have no idea of their whereabouts. 

According to Urmila, they tried to escape but in vain. “One night at around 12, we ran away along with our children. However, the owner mobilized his henchmen and at around five o’clock in the morning they located us and took us back,” said Urmila. “We then gave up hope that we would ever be able to return to Nepal.” 

According to Goma Paudel, supervisor at Maiti Nepal Birgunj branch, the villagers pressured Puja Rajbangsi and she informed Maiti Nepal, which subsequently rescued them. “When we said we were there to take them back to Nepal they first refused to leave. Yet, we rescued them. When we arrived at the Chhaudano Police Post they said they had refused to leave because they were scared the owner would have them killed,” said Goma Paudel.

“As they had made an attempt to escape once already, they were held hostage. Their living place was not safe,” she further said. According to Paudel, they were rescued from a compound made of bamboo poles and tins where they were housed.

Nita recalled the fate of a woman from Jhapa who used to dance with them. Her leg was broken and due to lack of timely treatment she became weak and was unable to walk. The owner promised to take her (the woman) back to the village but she has not reached her village yet. “She does not have parents. Who will search for her? Who knows what they did to her?” Nita said.

Trap of commission

There are 43 organizations working in the prevention and control of human trafficking associated with Alliance Against Trafficking of Women and Children in Nepal (ATWIN). Organizations like Maiti Nepal and Afanta Nepal have their branch offices in different parts of the country.

These organizations monitor trafficking issues in the border regions, identify the women and children at trafficking risks and prevent them from being trafficked, while also rescuing a number of them from India and bringing them back to Nepal, in coordination with Indian security forces and Indian organizations. Sunita Sapkota, the then chief of Afanta Nepal Birgunj branch, said that those who take their friends to orchestras do so on being lured with the prospect of getting additional money.

Since they receive a commission for doing this job, many Nepalis land in orchestras, said Shrijana. “Those who take three persons there get Rs 10,000 each in commission. So, they return home to Nepal and take more friends to the orchestras.” “Locals go across the border by saying that they are going for shopping. It is difficult to stop such people,” said Sapkota. “As for outsiders, we come to know they are being taken to the orchestras only after a long enquiry and interrogation.”

According to Sapkota, before the girls and women are taken to India, they are told that there will be attractive pay and nobody will touch them. But once there, they are not paid money, are made to dance to lewd songs which is video recorded and they are beaten, abused and even raped.

According to Paudel, supervisor of Maiti Nepal, orchestra procurers target women and girls who are interested in dancing and those who know how to dance. According to her, most of those rescued from orchestras have no knowledge about the orchestras. “They pay advance money at first. Then they promise to pay regularly but never do so,” said Paudel. “Some become used to the job or start to like it, others cannot return home even if they wish to.”

Challenges in rescue efforts

The Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau of Nepal Police, headquartered in Kathmandu, is actively working to prevent trafficking.

But the District Police Office and Armed Police Force play an important role to control trafficking in areas along the open border with India. Om Prakash Khanal, DSP, who served as the spokesperson at District Police Office Parsa, said that since orchestras are operated inside the Indian territory, the police face challenges in tracking the Nepalis from the time they receive the information about trafficking.

“Once we receive the information, we have to coordinate informally with the Indian security officials. Even then rescue is not easy. If you have good personal relations with those officials, they listen to you. You have to make them happy too,” he said. “Since coordination has to be established between the organizations of both the countries, it becomes really difficult at times to maintain secrecy.”

He says that once the victims are rescued and cases are filed on their behalf, the victims often do not cooperate fully. “Most victims are from remote areas from the border. Most of them are already victims of gender violence and poverty. Their parents come after several attempts and once they do they say ‘we don’t want to get into the trap of court cases’,” said Khanal. “Once the cases are registered in district courts, they come once or twice but fail to make their presence to register their testimony. This makes the case weak.” 

What makes controlling trafficking in orchestras even more challenging is the fact that there are different procurers involved — from the time of convincing the victims to their transportation across the border, said Khanal. And since the managers and operators are Indian nationals, it becomes even more difficult to track the culprits. According to him, the lack of branch offices of the Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau in each district of Nepal is another challenge. 

Gautam Mishra, Superintendent of Police and spokesperson at Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau in Kathmandu, says taking Nepali women across the border with the objective of exploitation on whatever pretext, is an act of human trafficking. But since human trafficking is a transnational organized crime, it is possible to bring those involved in it to justice even if they are Indians, once the case is filed. “But for this,” said Gautam, “The women working in the orchestras or their parents should register a criminal case.” 

Mishra argued that the case becomes weak when the victims do not support the police. “Once the rescued victims start saying that they came on their own free will to dance, they are fine and they also earn good money then the problems start,” said Mishra. “We need to generate a feeling among the victims that they are victims and they deserve justice.” 

Mamata Kumari, alias Ajima Khatun, 24, originally from Dhanusha district but living in Chhaudadano Municipality-11, Motihari, Bihar and Bikesh Kumar (alias Bikash) reached Payal Raj Musical Orchestra operated by Bikash. They started a ‘live in relation’ and began to run an orchestra. They needed young women to dance in weddings and parties and this was not available in Bihar. So, they started to search for Nepali women through Facebook. 

They started to lure Inarwa (H), Inarwa (I), Inarwa (G) and Inarwa (E) – names used by police while filing cases – through Facebook. Inarwa (F) was taken to the orchestra by a woman named Sapana Chaudhary. Inarwa (D) was contacted through phone, while Inarwa (C) was taken there by Hema Karki. They were told that they would be paid Rs 2,500 for dancing in one event. 

Inarwa (E)’s husband made an application requesting for the rescue of his wife at Afanta Nepal, branch office in Bharatpur, Chitwan. Afanta Nepal, in coordination with Nepali and Indian security personnel, raided an orchestra based in Adapur and rescued them on August 25, 2021. Those who were rescued had reached Chhaudadani of India via Birgunj, some of them 10 months ago, and some even three years back. The next day, Bikash and Mamata were arrested. 

The victims said that Bikash and Mamata (who promised good income) never treated them well. They (victims) were not paid the money due to them, were often scolded and beaten and also physically and mentally tortured. They were kept in dark rooms and not given food on time. The victims were also prohibited from making phone calls to their relatives, and often threatened and coerced and not allowed to move from one place to another. Victims, including Inarwa C filed a case in Parsa District Court on September 20, 2021, citing these atrocities. 

According to the testimony presented by the police, Bikash made them perform Mujra dance. Bikash did noy pay the victims for their work and intended to sell them in case anyone came looking for them. The police report mentions Mamata as saying that Bikash brought women from Nepal since young women were not available in India and said he would share half the profits from the orchestra and therefore, she cajoled Nepali women to go to India to work in the orchestra. 

Both Mamata and Bikash have changed their statements in court. They both denied luring Nepali girls into the orchestra and said they were made to dance only during weddings and initiation ceremonies. They also said that they did not make the victims wear revealing clothes and that they were provided Indian SIM cards to talk to relatives at home and that these women were brought to the orchestras by their relatives, who were not paid any money. They said that the women were given separate rooms for accommodation and they never put up any woman ‘on sale.’ “I did not take them from Nepal to sell them. They were working there much before I started to work there,” Mamata said at the court. “Both of us were arrested while Bikash was coming to leave me in Nepal.” Bikash claimed that he had records on his mobile to prove that he allowed the victims to talk to their relatives at home and also that he had records on paper of the details of payments he made to them. 

The court gave the judgment that the victims reached Chhaudano of Motihari to dance in orchestras out of their own will. The court stated that it was also not proven that the victims were rescued from Chhaudadano of Motihari, and that it was also not proven they were made to work but denied payment, and that they were intended to be sold or forced into prostitution. 

The court, however, reached the conclusion that the victims were not provided wages in orchestras and therefore that offense of labor exploitation was committed. The court charged Mamata and Bikash as per Section 4 (2) (b) of Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act (2007) arguing that the claim of the plaintiff (government of Nepal) that Mamata and Bikash committed offense as per Section 4 (a) could not be established. 

The verdict issued by Parsa District Court on March 30, 2022, states that the victims were not found to be inflicted physical, mental and sexual exploitation and they were simply not paid wages and labor exploitation was seen to be committed. The court ordered two years of imprisonment each for Bikash and Mamata as per Section 15 (1) (f). It states the victims can make the defendants (Mamata and Bikash) pay Rs 50,000 as compensation. The court ordered that Bikash and Mamata should deposit Rs 600 to the Crime Victim Relief Fund. 

Nepal’s legal provisions

According to the Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act, 2064, of Nepal, selling or buying a person for any purpose, engaging in prostitution with or without any benefit, removing a person's organ except as permitted by the prevailing law, and engaging in prostitution, is also human trafficking. 

Taking a person abroad for the purpose of buying or selling, engaging in prostitution or exploiting, in any way, luring, enticing, deceiving, defrauding, scheming, forcing, coercing, kidnapping, holding hostage, taking advantage of a vulnerable situation, intoxicating, misusing position or power, enticing a guardian or custodian, frightening, terrifying, threatening or coercing, removing someone from their residence, place or person, or keeping them with oneself or under one's control or in a particular place, or transporting them from one place to another within Nepal or abroad, or giving them to someone else, is considered transportation. Based on these two provisions of the Act, it is clear that victims including Srijana have been subjected to human trafficking and transportation. 

According to law, if anyone knows that the offense of human trafficking and transportation is being committed or committed, he/she may report it to the nearest police office. The person accused of an offense should provide evidence proving that he/she did not commit the offense. 

The Act has provisions for punishment of the person committing these offenses. There is punishment of 20 years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 200,000 for a person selling or buying a human being, 10 to 15 years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000 – Rs 100,000, as per the degree of offense, for forcing into prostitution, 10 years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 200,000 to Rs 500,000 for extracting human organ and one month to three months of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 for a person engaged in prostitution.

For a person who is involved in the transportation of human beings to another country for buying, selling, and engaging someone in prostitution, the punishment is 10 to 15 years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000 to Rs 100,000. If a child is taken out of the country, the punishment is 15-20 years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 100,000 to Rs 200,000. There is a provision of 10 years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000 to Rs 100,000 for a person taking another person from one place to another place within the country, and the punishment is 10 to 12 years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 100,000 in case the victim is a child. 

Likewise, punishment is one to two years of imprisonment for taking a person from one place to another place within the country, and two to five years of prison for taking the victim out of the country for the purpose of exploitation. The person engaged in provocation, conspiracy, and attempt of an offense of human trafficking or transportation or an abettor of that offense shall get half out of the full punishment envisioned for that offense. 

(This investigative report was prepared through NIMJN fellowship supported by the Australian Aid.  All rights reserved with the author and publisher.)

Read our guidelines for Republishing this story here.