 Anuradha Koirala, the founder of Maiti Nepal, visited WCW in March, meeting with executive director Susan Bailey
and several members of the research staff to talk about her work on the
trafficking of young girls in Nepal. Koirala founded Maiti Nepal in
1993 to address the growing problems confronting young women and girls
lured to India and other bordering countries by promises of work and a
better life, only to find themselves in sexual slavery. Maiti Nepal
provides shelter, rehabilitation, and advocacy for these young women
and for girls and boys who are destitute and in danger of being
trafficked. As part of the rehabilitation program, Maiti Nepal has set
up border-station teams of young women who have returned from India and
are able to recognize trafficking situations. They intervene by
challenging the traffickers and telling their own stories of being
forced into sexual slavery to the young women and girls being taken
across the border. This approach has proven to be effective in
preventing at least some traffickers from crossing into India with
young women and it has provided important work for the abused young
women who have returned to Nepal. After years of working at the
grassroots level, Koirala has recently been appointed to the Ministry
of Women, Children, and Social Welfare in Nepal where she will be
better able to shape government policy.
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