Six months ago, three minors were coerced into the sex trafficking industry in Nepal when they left home in search of work. Today, they are free.
Three girls, two fourteen-year-olds and one sixteen-year-old, traveled by train from their village in rural Nepal to the metropolitan capital of Kathmandu, where they found an opportunity to waitress at a restaurant and bar in the city.
Soon after they began waiting on tables, the owner forced them to submit to the sexual exploitation of his customers. This restaurant, like many in Kathmandu, was being used as a front for commercial sexual exploitation. The girls asked to leave, but the owner refused until they had repaid their alleged debt. To emphasize the gravity of his threat, he physically assaulted them.
The local Justice Hub was investigating the surrounding neighborhood when it learned of these minor girls. The investigators went undercover to make contact with the girls and gain the information needed to plan a rescue. When two of the girls’ parents learned of the situation, they stepped in and rescued their daughters, but the third girl was left behind. Working together with the police and government officials, the Justice Hub rescued the remaining minor girl and arrested the owner of the bar, as well as two of the men who had exploited her.
One of the girls gave a witness statement that has led to her perpetrators not only being arrested but put in jail. The bar has since been shut down.
Now, the girls are restored to their families and receiving aftercare services from the local Justice Hub.
