Human trafficking is a form of latent crime that wreaks havoc on one of the most panic social realities in Nepal. Every year, thousands of people, especially women and children, fall prey to traffickers who promise them employment, education and a dream life.
Most of these victims come from rural areas. Many of them are from marginalized communities where opportunities are limited. Through fraud, coercion, they are forced to work in the fields, factories, construction, in restaurants and residences.
Traffickers target on some of the Nepal’s most marginalised and vulnerable individuals for profiting from their plight. The United States’s Department of State’s annual 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report (PIR) provides the world’s most comprehensive assessment of this repulsive practice.
As porous border between Nepal and India makes it easy for traffickers to move people across countries without much restriction. Lack of consciousness, poverty, and joblessness are main pull factors to create the favourable environment. In most of the cases, gender inequality and social discrimination add to the problem girls and women are often underestimated making them easy marks.
Others factor like climate calamities and natural disasters, socio-economic, structural factors and weak performance of law enforcement security institutions continue to impact the reality of trafficking. In Nepal, trafficking in persons is described as a serious crime, grave violation of human rights, also form of present-day slavery.
This inhumane process involves the recruitment, sheltering, or passage of people into a manipulative situation. Most of the cases this processes through the means of violence, deception, or coercion for the purpose of exploitation.
Assessing the situation
Trafficking in persons poses a serious challenge to Nepal’s socio-economic development as studies have indicated that there is an undeniable link between increased migration and human mobility and trafficking.
Rapid economic growth coupled with low-priority infrastructure development in recent years has led to significant inward and outward migration of people to other regions. The newest census of Nepal, 2021 found that about fifty percent of the households had at least one member is either working abroad or had returned from working abroad.
In 2024, Nepal’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) estimated that 1.7 million Nepalis were vulnerable to human trafficking. The commission’s 2024 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report found a growing risk of human trafficking in all seven provinces and for people of all genders.
The report underscored the ongoing exploitation of Nepalis in the adult entertainment sector, as labourers at brick ovens, and in organ trafficking operations both domestic and international. It also detailed forced marriages in China and labour exploitation of Nepali citizens in the Africa, Europe and Middle East shows the scope is widening.
Harmonisation of processes
The Government of Nepal has yet to fully meet the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking but is making significant efforts. While demonstrating increased activity compared to previous years, Nepal remains on the Tier 2 Watch List in the US TIP Report. This status reflects the failure to criminalise all forms of labour and sex trafficking comprehensively and the lack of progress in victim identification, compensation, and referral procedures.
Nepal has also failed to protect migrants most of their rights abroad also. If these things remain in the same status Nepal may lose access to non-humanitarian and non-trade-related external assistance from many global multilateral institutions. For Nepal, given these terrible consequences, preparing well-articulated architecture for the country’s human trafficking issue should be a top priority for the short term interim new government.
Children and youth at risk of labour trafficking share many of the same risk factors; children who have recently migrated or relocated are at a heightened risk. It is important to remember that absence of these risk factors does not mean any particular child is not being trafficked.
Since many years different at District Courts convicted hundreds of traffickers; however, the government did not report the sentences prescribed to convicted traffickers or provide collective data on these convictions, which may have included non-trafficking offenses.
While discussing trafficking in persons, two recent incidents immediately come to mind for most Nepalis- the Bhutanese refugee scam 2023, and the visit visa case 2024, both of which revealed the involvement of individuals holding important government positions.
Some high-profile political leaders of ruling parties at that time have faced investigation and even punishment in connection with such crime, while others have managed to escape accountability. It is unfortunate that people entrusted with law making responsibility and its citizens have themselves been found involved in these criminal activities.
Similarly, the visit visa scandal exposed the misuse of government authority in facilitating human trafficking under the appearance of foreign employment and travel by Ministry of Home Affairs. These activities show how deep-rooted corruptions and impunity are within the system, undermining public trust and weakening national security from within.
This level of destruction of public trust and the weakening of national security have resulted in growing public dissatisfaction and youth-led movements. When aspirations of society and the state are diluted time and again, and when those in power ignored the safety and dignity of the citizens, it naturally fuels frustration among the common people especially among the younger generation.
The way forward
Nepal must address trafficking on multiple fronts: emotional, social, economic, and cultural. Survivours suffer long-term trauma and require robust psychological support. The economic impact is severe, with families pushed into debt and the nation losing its vital human capital. Socially, trafficking shatters community trust and leads to the stigmatization of survivours.
A key recommendation is to amend national anti-trafficking laws to align fully with the UN’s 2000 Palermo Protocol, which Nepal ratified five years ago. The upcoming High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on the appraisal of the UN’s Global Plan of Action (GPoA) to Combat Trafficking in Persons, scheduled for November 24–25, 2025, at the UN Headquarters in New York, will address challenges such as the role of new technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), in facilitating trafficking, presenting an opportunity for Nepal to reinvigorate its national and regional mechanisms.
Finally, human trafficking must be recognised as a cross-cutting development issue. The lack of clarity and coordination between national, provincial, and local laws has hampered anti-trafficking efforts. It is crucial to review the existing National Plan of Action and, specifically, the Trafficking in Women and Children Act of 2012 to expand its reach and strengthen its provisions.
