There has been an alarming increase in massage parlors, cabin restaurants, dohori (duet) restaurants, discos, and bars where teenagers and young women work under unsafe circumstances and are physically and sexually exploited. Poverty, vulnerability within the family, various forms of violence, illiteracy and unemployment all contribute to the gloomy picture.

Change Nepal provides services to the survivors and victims of sex trafficking in entertainment houses in Nepal. Apart from education, providing psycho-social counseling, vocational skill trainings, and health services, we also defend the human rights of women working in entertainment houses in Nepal.

Human trafficking is a multi-billion-dollar form of international organized crime equivalent to modern-day slavery. Victims are normally lured through deception. Organized groups of traffickers misuse innocent children and women in exploitative situations and even in smuggling and criminal activities. Powerful persons in the country are believed to have links to the atrocious trade.

Traffickers have found it easy to operate in Nepal because of legal loopholes and weak law enforcement agencies which themselves are accused of being widely corrupt. The heinous trade seems not only financially lucrative but, sadly, also unlikely to be penalized.