53.
174 “US Trafficking in Persons Report 2013”, Nepal Country Narrative, p276, US Department of State: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/210741.pdf. See also
“Nepal: Protect, Don’t Ban Young Women Migrating to the Gulf” (14 August 2012), Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/08/14/nepal-protect-don-t-ban- young-women-migrating-gulf
notable aspects of the response
From 1998-2010, Nepal banned women from migrating to the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for domestic work. The ban did little to protect Nepali migrant workers, as women and girls continued to migrate illegally to those countries in search of work; their undocumented status only increased their vulnerability to exploitation. In 2012, Nepal reinstated the ban, but limited it to women and girls under the age of 30. Implementation, however, is weak due to a severe lack of resources and endemic corruption. The Nepali Government and the IOM plan to open Migration Resource Centres throughout the country to empower migrant workers, and the police have established specialised units to protect women and children in each of the 75 districts across Nepal. The US TIP Report 2013 called for the ban on migration of women under 30 to be lifted, as such bans drive migration further underground and increase risk of trafficking.174
3. What needS to happen?
Nepal should:
■
■ Lift the ban on women under the age of 30 migrating to the Middle East, and instead put in place
stronger outreach and protection systems for women working in these countries.
■
■ Ensure national laws clearly and comprehensively criminalise all forms of modern slavery. Begin this
process by ratifying the UN Trafficking Protocol to give national laws a clear basis in international law.
■
■ Establish a commission to oversee the protection of various ethnic groups’ and lower castes’ human rights. ■
■ Ensure that the new Constitution includes clear provisions against all forms of modern slavery and ensures
equal and accessible citizenship rights for women and girls.
■
■ Focus on improving implementation of existing laws including with regard to forced prostitution,
exploitative foreign recruitment organisations, child labour, and workplace conditions.
■
■ Increase the Ministry of Labour and Employment’s capacity to collaborate with the National Committee
to Combat Human Trafficking through hiring and training more labour inspectors to identify and report modern slavery.
■
■ Report on results of investigations into government corruption and complicity in modern slavery. ■
■ Fund monitoring of implementation of operational guidelines for rehabilitation centres, protection and
care of victims and survivors or modern slavery.
■
■ Coordinate with NGOs to collect data on regions, organisations and populations that are most affected
by trafficking and to streamline response and direct services protocols.
■
■ Establish cross-border collaborations, including on law enforcement, repatriation of victims and provision
of services, with India and China.
■
■ Focus on ways to facilitate low cost, quick, safe labour migration, while minimising opportunities for
“rent seekers” to profit from that process.
■
■ Ensure that victims of fraudulent brokers can lodge complaints against them from within their home
54.
175 2012 Population Data, The World Bank: http://databank.worldbank.org/data/views/reports/tableview.aspx 176 2012 GDP $US Data, The World Bank: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD
177 2012 GDP per capita $US Data, The World Bank: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD/countries 178 Migration and Remittances Data, Inflows, 2011, The World Bank: http://go.worldbank.org/092X1CHHD0 179 Ibid.
180 “Extended Migration Profile of the Republic of Moldova” (2012), International Organisation for Migration: http://publications.iom.int/bookstore/free/110_emp_report.pdf 181 Ibid.
182 “Statistical Review 1: Moldova: Migration and Trafficking Survey” (2012), International Labour Organisation: http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/site/myjahiasite/shared/
shared/mainsite/published_docs/books/data_res_human.pdf
183 “Victims of Human Trafficking: A Statistical Profile” (2012), Moldova, International Organisation for Migration: http://www.usaim.org/sites/default/files/IOM%20MD_VoT%20
Statistical%20Profile%202012.pdf
184 Ibid. 185 Ibid.
186 “The Cross-National Market in Human Beings”, 2009, Journal of Macromarketing, Julia R. Pennington, A. Dwayne Ball, Ronald D. Hampton and Julia N. Soulakova: http://
jmk.sagepub.com/content/29/2/119.short
1. the problem
Moldova is considered primarily a source country for modern slavery, reflecting regional inequalities and trafficking patterns. In proportion to its cost of living, Moldova’s GDP per capita provides a comfortable life; however, its GDP is the lowest in Europe, creating a push factor for emigration. In 2011, remittances from Moldovan’s working overseas made up 23% of GDP, and forward estimates place the value of remittances in 2012 at $1,770 million.179 The primary destination countries for documented Moldovan emigrants are the
Ukraine, Russia, USA, Israel, Germany and Belarus.180 The largest share of documented emigration flows is to
Russia and Ukraine, which hosted during 2005-2010, about 80% of the population that left the country each year. It is also important to note that each year, the USA hosts about 10 per cent of the Moldovan emigrants, followed by Israel and Germany with almost 5 per cent of the total emigrants leaving Moldova.181 About 65% of
Moldovan emigrants are less than 39 years old182 and leave the country for employment opportunities abroad.
Moldovan nationals have been identified in modern slavery situations in many countries, involving exploitation in the sex industry, construction, agriculture, and domestic work. From the statistics of victims assisted by IOM in 2012, it appears that in that year, Moldovan men, women and children were exploited primarily in the Ukraine, but also in Russia, the UAE, Turkey and Kosovo.183 With regard to victims exploited in
the Ukraine, more than half the victims of trafficking identified and assisted were men, with 92% of men and women trafficked for labour exploitation; and in Russia, 37% of all victims identified were exploited for labour, while 24% were sexually exploited. With regard to victims exploited in Kosovo, the UAE and Turkey, all victims identified were women, and all were trafficked for sexual exploitation.184
Moldova is also, to a lesser extent, a site of modern slavery and a transit country for human trafficking. The IOM identified 16 internally trafficked victims in 2012, more than half of whom were minors, with eight exploited for their labour, five for sexual exploitation, one a mixture of both labour and sexual exploitation, and one for begging.185
Trafficking for the purpose of organ removal was identified in Moldova in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but has been decreasingly reported.
Unlike most countries, in Moldova, various efforts have been made to estimate the scale of the modern slavery problem. A 2009 paper186 based on a survey of returned migrant workers and the family members
of absent migrant workers conducted in 2006, estimated the number of Moldovans trafficked abroad to be
6
moldova
esTiMaTed nuMber enslaved 32,000 – 35,000
PoPulaTion 3,559,541 (2012)175
gdP $7.254 bIllIon (2012)176
gdP/caPiTa $2,038 (2012)177
us TiP rePorT ranKing tIer 2 (2013)
reMiTTances as a share of gdP 23% (2011)178
i n d e x r a n K