Pansara Badi of Chhinchu in the district, whose daughter Rabina has gone missing for the past two years, was  really happy when she saw Maiti Nepal Chairperson Anuradha Koirala on the banks of the Chhinchu river recently.

Pansara poured her heart out to Koirala, who was in the area to raise awareness against human trafficking, and requested her to find her missing daughter. Koirala, in response, assured that she would do her best to find Pansara’s daughter.

Rabina was married to Khadke Badi of Sattari in Lekhparajul and was taken to India by her husband without even informing Pansara. “I have not heard of my daughter after since I came to know that Khadke left her and married with another woman in India,” she said.

According to Keshab Koirala, chairperson of the Nepalgunj branch of Maiti Nepal, many parents like Pansara in Chinchu, Maintada, Mehalkuna and Birendranagar in the district have lodged complaints with the organisation about their missing relatives. “We have received 62 complaints about missing people in the area,” he said. Koirala said the main reason behind the rising incidents of trafficking of teenage girls was the gender bias prevalent in the society. He said many illiterate girls were trafficked due to various factors such as the trend of going to India or the Gulf countries for employment and open border with India.

“There is no difference between India and the Gulf countries for these trafficked women,” Koirala said, elaborating that women trafficked to India ended up in brothels whereas those who were taken to the Gulf countries were exploited by the family members they worked for.

Bishwo Ram Khadka, director of Maiti Nepal, said they organised the awareness campaign to seek a solution to the problem from within the villages. He said every individual should lend a hand to get rid of the social evil. The participants of the two-day door-to-door awareness campaign in Chinchu and Maintada VDC also staged street

dramas.