Valley
Man gets 25-year jail for trafficking of girls
The Bhaktapur District Court has slapped a man with 25-year jail sentence and Rs 225,000 fine after he was found guilty of trafficking girls to the bordering Chinese town of Khasa.Anup Ojha
A single bench of Judge Lekhanath Dhakal on Monday announced the verdict against 29-year-old Ashimanraj Tamang after the court found him guilty of trafficking two Nepali girls to Khasa and selling them to a brothel operator there. The court has also ordered Tamang to pay a compensation amount of Rs 125,000 to each victim.
Tamang was arrested last year by a team from the Boarder Police Station (BPS) with the help of a monitoring team of Maiti Nepal, a non-profit organisation that works against human trafficking.
The girls, however, escaped from the brothel and lodged a complain against Tamang at Maiti Nepal.
According to Sajani Joshi, a layer at Maiti Nepal, Tamang had taken three girls to Khasa. The whereabouts of the third girl is still unknown.
A permanent resident of Dolakha, Tamang has been serving time in Dillibazar prison since April after the Kathmandu District Court had sentenced him to 20 years with a fine of Rs 200,000 in another case related to human trafficking.
According to Maiti Nepal, the trend of trafficking young girls to Khasha is on the rise. Traffickers are found to have lured young girls from Sindhupalchok, Rasuwa, Dolakha and other districts and forced them into prostitution in the Tibetan town across the border.
“During a survey visit to Khasa four years, our team had found as many as 150 Nepali girls working as sex workers. Police report suggests the number has doubled since,” Joshi said. Maiti Nepal has rescued 37 girls from Khasha so far.
“We have found that pimps take girls from dance bars and massage parlours in Kathmandu and Pokhara to the Chinese town on a temporary boarder pass,” said Keshav Shah, inspector at BPS. Most of the traffickers hail from Sindhupalchok and Dolakha districts as the border immigration office issues free passes for people of Sindhupalchok district to cross over to Khasha for a year.
“People from these districts have a better knowledge of Khasha bazaar where many Nepalis are running dance bars and cabin restaurants too,” said Shah. At least 25 dance bars and dozens of cabin restaurants operate in Khasa, according to police.