Opening Speech

Remarks by Hon. Dan Bahadur Chaudhary; Minister, Ministry of Women, Children & Social Welfare

The Chair of this Seminar, Hon. Members of the Constituent Assembly, representatives from different government, non-government and private organizations, it is my pleasure to have the opportunity of being the Chief Guest of today’s Seminar. Thanks to the organizers for their invitation.

Speaking in the context of trafficking, the law against trafficking in Nepal is one of the best in the entire South Asian Region. However, the implementation is not as strong as the law itself. Hence, to minimize the problem of trafficking and to eradicate the problem from its very roots, strengthening the implementation, alongside the presence of strong legal provisions, is a necessity today.
 
In the present situation, the relationship and coordination between the Government of Nepal and non-government organizations is strong. The government works in the areas of prevention, protection and prosecution. The government has allocated a budget for different programmes, including awareness-raising, as prevention. Likewise, it has, with necessary investment, established rehabilitation centres which are operated by concerned NGOs. In these centres, the survivor women are provided with income-raising and skill development training apart from logistics support. Besides all this, to make the women legally strong, the government also provides them with free legal counseling. Similarly, the National Committee Against Trafficking is working in the centre and various districts.

Economic Rehabilitation has an important role to play when we talk of eradicating the trafficking problem from its roots. For the lack of appropriate economic opportunities for livelihoods, the possibility of women already rehabilitated falling prey to re-trafficking owing to abject financial circumstances remains. I have realized that the organizers of today’s Seminar want to share their research experiences/findings regarding long-term and substantial means of livelihoods for the survivors/vulnerable women and the underlying problems in the post-trafficking scenario.

The government of Nepal has joined hands with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the ‘Trafficking Risk Reduction in Nepal (TRRIN)’ project that is being implemented based on the theoretical model of economic rehabilitation as shown by your research project. In addition, participation of NGOs and the private sector is another characteristic feature of the TRRIN project.

We are unanimous in that Human Trafficking is a violation of fundamental human rights. Hence, it is a must that we contribute from our side in the campaign against trafficking. I believe that today’s Seminar will show us the way to this direction.

Thank You.

Conference Report - Conference Report - Making Livelihoods Post Trafficking Sexuality, Citizenship and Stigma (PDF: 142KB)