Virginity for Sale: The Dark World of Forced Teen Prostitution

By Kamala Sarup and Lys Anzia, Women News Network. Posted December 17, 2008.

Because most sex trafficking in rural Nepal is often made through personal contacts and arrangements, up-to-date, detailed and accurate documentation and data of girls who have been forced into the global sex industry in this region is still greatly lacking. Tragically, many missing girls from Nepal disappear deep into the brothel system of India. As time passes, they are often sold again and again, to one owner after another, only to settle deep into the degradation of life trapped as a young prostitute.

Girls who are victims of sex-trafficking in Nepal often live on the poorest, outcast edge from the lowest caste of society, where hardship is the norm. Often food may be scarce, or clean water unavailable. Missing girls can be as young as 8 or 9, but are most often 14 to 18. However, current trends are showing higher-caste girls are also being bought and sold. 

For the last decade, it has been estimated that  6,000 to 7,000 girls are trafficked out of Nepal each year. But these numbers have recently risen substantially -- current numbers are 10,000 to 15,000 girls yearly. The Central Intelligence Agency states that most trafficked girls are worth $250,000 on the sex-trades market.

The top destination for most Nepalese girls is to Mumbai brothels. Other common destinations for girls leaving Nepal include the cities of Pune, Delhi and Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India. Trafficking is a lucrative business in Kolkata, too. Areas outside of India include cities in the Middle East and other Asia regions.The odds for a girl to escape her life in the brothels are very slim. Only a dismal percentage (6.9 percent) of brothel owners will voluntarily release a girl; 73.7 percent of all girls trapped inside the brothel system will only reach the outside world again if they are rescued.

The stay for most girls who are rescued from a brothel is 12 to 36 months. Unfortunately, those who cannot be rescued are trapped for many more years. Even with ongoing attempts by rescue agencies, countless girls fall desperately through the cracks.

Maiti Nepal, a 20-year-old rescue organization, based in Kathmandu, is one of the organizations that manages the ongoing rescue of Nepali girls from the brothels of Mumbai. Going up against organized crime in India is not an easy matter though. "The criminal elements that ‘deliver’ young girls are a ruthless enemy and have political connections at the highest levels in India and Nepal. Maiti Nepal’s main office in Kathmandu has been destroyed twice, and Maiti workers must travel with a bodyguard when overseeing rescue missions in India," said the sister organization of Maiti Nepal, called Friends of Maiti Nepal.

High Exposure to HIV/AIDS

"It is estimated that 50 percent of Nepalese sex workers in Mumbai brothels are HIV-positive," says a World Bank 2004 report. The youngest victims of sex trafficking are the ones most likely to be directly exposed to HIV/AIDS. There is an "increased risk among those trafficked prior to age 15 years," says a 2007 report in the Journal of the American Medical Association. JAMA outlined statistics that prove a direct rise in HIV/AIDS cases in the youngest section of girls trafficked from Nepal. These girls are usually 9 to 14.

"Within this high-risk group, risk for HIV was increased among girls trafficked at 14 years or younger (60.6 percent HIV-positive) to those trafficked to Mumbai (49.6 percent HIV-positive) and to those reporting longer duration in brothels. The high rates of HIV infection seen among these survivors of trafficking, indicates a need for greater attention from the public health community to this population and to prevention of this violent gender-based crime and human rights violation."

"In Mumbai and Pune, for example, 54 percent and 49 percent of sex workers, respectively, were found to be HIV-positive," (India's National AIDS Control Organization, 2005). A large proportion of women with HIV appear to have acquired the virus from regular partners who were infected during paid sex. HIV-prevention efforts targeted at sex workers are being implemented in India. However, the context of sex work is complex, and enforcement of outdated laws often act as a barrier against effective HIV-prevention and treatment efforts. Indeed, condom use is limited, especially when commercial encounters take place in ‘risky’ locations with low police tolerance for this activity."

Drug use, too, among prostituted girls causes many problems when these girls are returned home to families and communities. Girls who have received no assistance with drug rehab often try to return to life in the brothels to feed their intense addictions. Drugs abused include cough syrup, cannabis, heroin and propoxyphene (Darvon), along with alcohol and mild tranquilizers.

"Injection-drug use appears to be extensive in Nepal and to overlap with commercial sex," says World Bank Asia (2008). "Another important factor is the high number of sex workers who migrate or are trafficked to Mumbai, India to work, thereby increasing HIV prevalence in the sex workers’ network in Nepal more rapidly."

See more stories tagged with: violence, women, rape, sex trafficking, india, hiv, nepal

Lys Anzia is the director of Women News Network, an award-winning playwright, (2007) Pushcart Prize nominee and humanitarian journalist.

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