The Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (MoWCSW) has announced that it will add 17 more rehabilitation centres by 2017 to accommodate the growing number of trafficking victims. There are eight state-run rehabilitation centres to assist trafficking survivors.

“We felt the need to add more rehabilitation centres but were unable to do anything about it due to lack of fund,” said Sunita Nepal, head of Human Trafficking and Transport department at the MoWCSW.

“This fiscal year’s budget helped us add more rehabilitation centres, which we expect will be ready by 2017.”

The government allocated funds of around Rs 100 million for additional centres to help empower women under the President Upliftment Programme for the fiscal year 2016/2017.

The programme will also work to provide seed money to needy women to start their micro business and assist victims of domestic violence.

The government is currently running rehabilitation centres in Kailali, Banke, Rupandehi Chitwan, Parsa, Sindhupalchok, Kathmandu and Jhapa. They provide short-term counselling and teach income generating skills to the rescued women to make them economically independent.

The government is yet to finalise the names of districts to run new rehabilitation centres. “We hope to expand these centres in districts which are notorious for trafficking and gender-based violence,” said Nepal.