Kathmandu: When Durga Ghimire was younger, she once made a trip across Nepal that would go on to change the course of her life. She journeyed the country with her family. Her children were raised in the United Kingdom and Ghimire wanted to show them the colors and contours of their native country. On the way, they encountered two girls aged 14 and 15, being held in police custody along with their traffickers. The girls were saved from nearly getting trafficked, and it was unimaginable how horrific their lives would have been had they not been rescued. When she realized this, Ghimire had an epiphany, she remembers, that this is what she was meant to do in her life: work on preventing girls from being trafficked in Nepal.
Durga Ghimire has stuck to that goal she set for herself decades back, devoting her life to not just rescuing, but also empowering, the survivors of trafficking in Nepal. Ghimire established the first organization that worked for the survivors of girl trafficking in Nepal, in 1990.
Back then, there was a lot of misconception and stigma in the Nepali society around survivors of trafficking. People believed that survivors of trafficking bring AIDS, a belief not entirely unfounded, and would be a “bad influence” in society, Ghimire says.
Ghimire had a degree in law, so she wrote a paper explaining how laws that are meant to keep women safe were still not properly implemented. But unfortunately, none of the publications agreed to publish it. With some support from her husband, the late author Jagadish Ghimire, she was able to publish her article in Gorkhapatra, Nepal’s first, state-owned newspaper.
Since there was the partyless Panchayat regime in Nepal, registering an organization that worked for women’s rights was an uphill task. She had to register her organization under the Department of Industry in 1987. Thus began the journey of Agroforestry, Basic Health, and Cooperative (ABC) Nepal, the first organization that worked for the victims of trafficking. Ghimire led as a president of the organization for three decades, till 2017.
During the Panchayat, she was also vigorously advocating against the autocratic regime, demanding democracy. The regime deemed it an offense and she had to languish in jail for 13 months. After her release, she wrote a book called “Jail ko Samjhana”—Memories of the Prison—which chronicled her experience and observation, particularly the dreadful situation of women inmates.
After the fall of the Panchayat and the dawn of multi-party democracy in 1990, Ghimire was finally able to register her organization as a non-profit organization.
Ghimire had to deal with challenges galore. Since there were no donors for her organization and the government was not as supportive as it should have been, Ghimire started her work with Rs 7000 she had. She started with non-formal education, and also started a radio program called “Cheli ko Aawaz”—Voices of a Girl— recorded a cassette named “Shakti”—Power—and staged street performances in more than 32 districts. She also wrote a song called “Bechiyeko Keti ko Aawaz”—The Voice of a Trafficked Girl. She believed that above anything else, it was important to make people aware about the plights of the trafficked girls.
In 1996, Ghimire contributed to the rescue of Nepali women from India, following a police raid in the brothels of Mumbai. Many women were stuck at the borders, and were not let into Nepal. “It was their right to be able to enter their home country,” she said.
Ghimire, now in the fourth decade of her career, has left behind a body of work that should inspire many. “We will have to keep this work going,” she says, “if we want to see our sisters be safe from trafficking in the future.”
She formed a delegation to rescue women from India, and visited the then Prime Minister of Nepal twice. After several attempts, she says, she realized that no one was going to take the leadership and it was on her to rescue them and bring them home.
With the help of her delegation and seven other organizations, she was able to bring them back after three months of the raid. “First we had to start with the juvenile court in India,” she said, since there were several children among those survivors. She wrote an application to the juvenile court in Maharashtra, through the National Network Against Girl Trafficking, and president of ABC Nepal, to hand over the children survivors. The Court then handed them over under the responsibility of Ghimire, and they were brought back to their country. She got help from some of the social organizations from India during the process of rescue.
After the rescue, there were many obstacles she had to face. People were not accepting of the survivors. “Even the employees of the organization were scared to go near them,” she said. There were many minors who were going through mental trauma because of their time in the brothel. “We did not have any counselors to help them through at that time,” she said. The Indian organization, Stri Shakti, an NGO known to involve individuals who are task-oriented and driven by a common interest, helped them by sending one of their counselors and helping the employees learn how to deal with the survivors.
“These women did not choose to be trafficked,” Ghimire said. “It was the consequence of our society’s functioning and its treatment towards women that led them to being trafficked.”
She added, “It is not just the economic status of a woman that gets her trafficked. There are many other contributing factors. Illiteracy and their social status are some obvious reasons but more than that it is the shady businessmen’s hunger for money.”
On her journey of 30 years in this field, Ghimire has seen many changes. Many other organizations have been formed that work for women’s rights, including Shakti Samuha, which was established by the women who got rescued during the raid of 1996. Her constant effort to sensitize the government regarding the protection of women’s rights has inspired many new laws to be passed within the past years.
Ghimire, now in the fourth decade of her career, has left behind a body of work that should inspire many. “We will have to keep this work going,” she says, “if we want to see our sisters be safe from trafficking in the future.”
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