There is a need for harmonising Human Trafficking and Transportation Control Act (HTTCA) and Foreign Employment Act (FEA) to make prosecution process easier, says the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (MoWCSW).

According to the ministry, the trend of human trafficking cases being treated as a felony concerning foreign employment is rising, making it very important to correlate the two acts.  

“With the growing trend of human trafficking intersecting with foreign employment we have felt a need to harmonise the two acts (Human Trafficking and Foreign Employment Acts) in order to ease the prosecution process and assure that the perpetrator does not walk away easily,” said Radhika Aryal, joint secretary at the MoWCSW.

Stakeholders have been urging the MoWCSW and the Ministry of Labor and Employment to coordinate with each other to provide prompt justice to the victims. 

Aryal also expressed the need to ratify the Palermo Protocol which deals with the issues of human trafficking and foreign employment. 

A report published by Forum for Women, Law and Development in December last year had stated that human traffickers have been skirting the law by making the most out of the jurisdiction overlap in HTTCA and FEA. The report pointed out that trafficking in the name of employment has made the subject of trafficking complex since the victims who land in foreign land through illegal channel rarely get justice. And even if they do, the perpetrators get treated under the FEA and get small sentence.

A data of International Labor Organization, 2001, suggests that 12,000 women and children are trafficked from Nepal every year.