The country, through the Palermo Protocol (2020), identifies human trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or a position of vulnerability, or the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Human trafficking in Nepal is a persistent issue, with an estimated 20,000 to 23,000 victims each year, especially women and girls between the ages of 12 and 25 from rural areas of the country, where poverty rates are higher and thus they are more vulnerable to deception.
The border between Nepal and India, which stretches for 1,600 kilometers, has only 14 checkpoints, making human trafficking easier. Each year, more than 20,000 women and girls are illegally transported from Nepal to India. This situation worsened after the 2015 earthquake.
Although the government has implemented specific laws, anti-trafficking units, and awareness campaigns, serious challenges remain: corruption, limited law enforcement capacity, insufficient victim identification, and scarce resources for rehabilitation.
