Modern Day Slavery: Human Trafficking

Modern Day Slavery: Human Trafficking


One of the events of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, was A Talk on ‘Modern-day Slavery’, held on 26th November, 2012 at the Chaahari Services, Baluwatar. 15 minutes behind the schedule could simply be ignored for a very productive and informative session following that. Stakeholders from government sectors, advocates, young leaders, activists, all under the same roof talking about the modern day slavery i.e. human trafficking. The major focus of the session was on trafficking (slavery) via the borders and the citizenship related issues of females.

Mohana Ansari, Lawyer and Women Rights Activist, Currently Member of  National Women’s Commission, mainly emphasized on poor governmental policies to be the key reason behind trafficking, both internal and external. She also criticized the law regarding the restriction of females till 30 years of age to go abroad for work. Adding to which she mentioned , instead of making a proper inspection system, to restrict young women on working and earning is not a sensible action. Usha Kala Rai, Former constituent assembly member, critically talked about the citizenship related rights. She painted the fact that in the patriarchal society like ours, women are not able to provide citizenship to their children with their names. Although it has clearly been mentioned in law that an individual can acquire the citizenship either from the mother’s name or the father’s but in reality s/he would have to appeal to the court to obtain the citizenship from the mother’s name she added. For her concluding remarks she requested the young audience to atleast mention the name of both the parents even for the most general issue to make sure that women feel empowered. Similarly,  Upendra Prasad Adhikary, Secretary, Ministry of Child ,Women  and Social Welfare declared about various intervention programs and action plans of the government to control trafficking and gender based violence. Thus, the remarks of these personalities proved to be exceedingly informative.



The other highlights of the program were ‘You Do Me No Harm’, a Slam Poetry on gender violence and “Not My Life”, a documentary screening. The feedback's provided by the audience were also very interesting. Some believed that action packed programs should be conducted by involving young college students even outside Kathmandu if possible while the others thought that more of such talk programs would be beneficial.

All in all, the talk on Modern Day Slavery was in fact an effortlessly conducted, enlightening and constructive session.

 

 


 





This post is contributed by Aaditi Khanal. 
Photos by : Roshan Basnet from Youth Initiative 

Aaditi Khanal is activist and a part of the organization YUWA and recently was at 2nd South Asian Youth Conference 2012 as well.



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