60 Nepali women trafficked to Qatar

Five dozen Nepali women, most of whom can hardly read or write, were trafficked to Qatar in the last few months by a Nepali tout, a television channel reported Wednesday.

A. Bahadur Moktan, a resident of Makwanpur in central Nepal, near capital city Kathmandu, lured the women with promises of finding them lucrative jobs in the oil-rich Islamic country as domestic help, private channel Nepal1 reported.

According to the laws in the country, women are banned from working as domestic help in the Middle East countries following the furore over the death of a woman in Kuwait, who was reportedly raped and thrown down from the top of the house where she worked.

However, unscrupulous brokers circumvent the ban by taking the victims to the Middle East via India, where the immigration authorities ask no questions.

Moktan is reported to have taken the women to Qatar via New Delhi.

The plot came to light this month when he tried to take six more women to the same destination.

However, the bus carrying the women and Moktan to the Indian border was stopped by Maoist cadres, who became suspicious about the group.

After questioning the women, who said they had paid Moktan NRS. 25,000 each (about $360) for a job as domestic help, the rebels ordered them off the bus and handed them over to the local police.

From the town of Gajuri, where they were stopped, the women were taken to a rehabilitation centre in the capital run by a non-governmental organisation Maiti Nepal.

Most of the six have not studied beyond school and were unaware it is illegal to seek job in the Middle East as domestic help.

Moktan, however, claimed he was innocent.

Moktan said he had found employment for the women as domestic helps with rich families. Once they began working, he said they would have been able to send money back home after two to three months.

Every year, thousands of Nepali men and women go abroad in search of jobs, many of them illegally.

They also go to dangerous destinations like Iraq and Afghanistan, ignoring the government ban to these regions.

While middle men and agents continue to make money through the illegal transactions, the government often turns a blind eye to the brokers' doings since remittance sent by Nepalis abroad help keep buoyant an economy tottering due to political instability and a decade-old Maoist insurgency that has killed over 13,000 people.

(IANS)

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