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Human trafficking in South Asia
July 12, 2004
Neeta Lama of Nepal is now back with her parents. The thirteen-year-old girl
was recently rescued from forced labor in an Indian circus, according to The
Washington Times newspaper. Neeta was sold to circus owners in 2002 by her
father. Neeta told her rescuers, members of several non-governmental human
rights groups, that she and other child performers were terribly abused by
circus owners and managers. "I cannot remember how many times I was raped," she
said.
Neeta Lama is one of the more than six-hundred-thousand people estimated to be
trafficked across international borders each year.
Stopping this horrific traffic is a high priority for the United States, says
Secretary of State Colin Powell:
"The more you learn about the most vulnerable among us who are savaged by these
crimes, the harder it is to look the other way, and the easier it is to
understand the President's [Bush’s] determination that we act to put a stop to
all trafficking in persons. We're talking about women and girls, as young as
six years old, trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation; men trafficked
into forced labor; children trafficked as child soldiers. The victims are not
few, and the vast majority are women and children."
Efforts are being made to stop the exploitation of children in particular. The
United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, is seeking to demobilize some
eight-thousand child soldiers in Afghanistan. Since February, more than
two-thousand-two-hundred child soldiers between the ages of fourteen and
eighteen have reportedly been disarmed and demobilized in eight Afghan
provinces. UNICEF officials say the program is expected to be expanded to six
provinces in central Afghanistan and five provinces in the north before the end
of this year.
Elsewhere in the region, the U.S. State Department says in a recent report that
Pakistan "does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination
of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so." The U.S.
State Department has also identified Bangladesh as a country of origin and
transit for the trafficking of women and children. But unlike Pakistan, India,
Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, the report says Bangladesh "is not making
significant efforts" to combat trafficking in persons.
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