Kathmandu, March 6
Lokman Rai, one of the human traffickers in police’s ‘wanted’ list, was arrested in January 2018 on charges of smuggling dozens of Nepalis to Turkey and swindling millions from them. After 12 days, the court released him on a bail of Rs 1 million as police could not furnish evidence to prove him guilty.
The 43-year-old was again arrested in June on charges of extracting millions of rupees from 15 Nepalis on false promises of finding them well-paid jobs in Libya. Although the court is yet to rule on this case, police are sceptical of seeing him behind bars, thanks to ‘toothless’ Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act.
Nepal is solely relying on the law introduced in 2007 to control human smuggling. But it convicts human traders only if victims are forced into prostitution, are literally sold, their organs are removed or if they are taken hostage by their ‘owners’.
Since the crime committed by human smugglers such as Rai does not meet these legal criteria, courts generally set them free, said Superintendent of Police Govinda Thapaliya, who is deputed at the Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau of Nepal Police.
Human smugglers generally offer decent employment and wages as baits to lure victims. These victims often borrow money at high interest rates to
pay the smugglers in advance, hoping overseas employment would improve their living standards and help them support their families.
Those who actually find decent jobs with good wages abroad do not complain. But most of the time victims are left stranded in transit countries or find themselves in a situation contrary to what was promised to them. This is when most of them reach out to the police.
“The victims who lodge police complaints find it difficult to prove their case in the court because they cannot gather evidence to show they were actually smuggled and sold in a foreign country. And since the existing law does n
Read the full story on The Himalayan Times
The post Why do majority of human smugglers go unpunished? appeared on Nepal123.com.
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