National
347 women, children missing from Makwanpur: Report
At least 347 women and children have gone missing from Makwanpur district in the last four years, the records of the District Police Office (DPO) in Hetauda show.Pratap Bista
HETAUDA,
At least 347 women and children have gone missing from Makwanpur district in the last four years, the records of the District Police Office (DPO) in Hetauda show.
Forty-one women and children went missing in the last fiscal year, DSP Naresh Kumar Singh said citing a report compiled by the DPO. In the fiscal year 2016-17, 184 women and children went missing, whereas 85 women and children went missing in the fiscal 2015-16 and 37 women and children went missing in 2014-15.
The whereabouts of the missing women and children are still unknown. “Women and children go missing every year. However, the concerned authorities are unable to search them,” said Prakash Khatiwada, who has been working for the welfare of women and children.
Durga Bahadur Moktan, of Kailash Rural Municipality-3, said that his 19-year-old daughter Sunita has been out-of-touch with the family for the last five months. “Sunita had gone abroad for work five months ago. We have not
heard from her since,” said Moktan, adding that he had registered a complaint at the DPO to search for his missing daughter.
Another local, Arjun Bhlon, of Sukaura, who has been working in Qatar for the last one and a half years,
said his wife has been missing for the last four months. Arjun’s father has also lodged a file at the DPO
to search for his missing daughter-in-law.
Women and children organisations working against human trafficking say they have seen many cases where these missing women and children are found to be living in foreign countries illegally. Maya Lama, of Makwanpur Maiti Nepal, said that traffickers have started to sell women and children on the pretext of providing them lucrative job opportunities in foreign countries.
Contrasting all that, Dipa Karki, an officer of the women’s cell division in the DPO, said people register their applications at the DPO, but do not follow up on their complaints.
“They don’t inform police if they later come in contact with their missing family members. Due to this reason, the data that we have is actually incomplete,” said DSP Karki. The DPO, however, did not comment on their inability to find and locate the missing people.