'I was forced to serve 30 men a day, seven days a week': The former sex slave

 

'I was forced to serve 30 men a day, seven days a week': The former sex slave fighting to save underage girls from sex traffickers looking to make their fortune from Nepal's devastation

• Sunita Duanwar was just 14 when she was trapped in a Mumbai brothel 
• Kept in a tiny room and beaten for five months - but managed to escape
• Sunita has dedicated her life to helping others avoid the horrific fate
• But her work is hard as smugglers target desperate girls following disaster

Twenty years ago, Sunita Duanwar suffered five months of unimaginable cruelty at the hands of sex slave traders who made her sleep with up to 30 men a day.

She was just 14 and lured to India on the promise of regular work, but instead was locked in a small room with a barred window, beaten by her 'customers' and even woken up so her new 'owners' could force her to have sex.

She was one of the lucky ones who managed to escape, and has dedicated her life to trying to save other young girls from the same fate, tricked by the same promises.

But in the wake of Nepal’s earthquake, the problem has become even more acute as sex traffickers prey on desperate families left with nothing after the natural disaster destroyed vast swathes of the country.

Sunita was just as desperate as many of these young women when she was sold into the sex industry by callous slave traders in Mumbai.

While most children of her age are at school, she was kept locked in a room,and forced to work as a child prostitute.

‘During those five months I was forced to serve up to 30 customers a day seven days a week and 50 costumers a day at public holidays and celebrations, and some of them would beat me,' she told MailOnline.

'Even when I tried to sleep they would wake me up if a customer wanted sex.

‘I was not allowed to go out of the house or leave the room which had bars in front of the windows and I was guarded all the time. 

'Even the local policemen were bribed to turn the blind eye to what happened to me and to the other girls in that house.’

Sunita was lucky: a Buddhist monk became aware of her plight, and rescued her from her prison, eventually helping her cross the border back to Nepal, and her family.

Now 36, she is as determined as ever to save girls from the traders, running Shakti Samuha, a charity whose staff mostly consists of women who also have been trafficked and rescued from Indian brothels.

Nepal has long been a hunting ground for people smugglers, looking for people to sell into modern day slavery.

The Global Slavery Index estimated some 228,700 Nepalese are in modern day slavery across the world, while a 2013 Unicef report said some 7,000 women and children are taken to India to work in the brothels every year.

The organisation estimated there are 200,000 Nepalese working in the brothels.

But many fear the earthquake has made things far worse and Sunita, is increasingly worried for the girls and young women of Nepal, as their desperation makes it even easier to whisk them across the border and into sex slavery.

‘People are more desperate and look for possibilities to survive after the earthquake,’ says Sunita.

‘We fear the number of sex trafficked young women and girls from poor and marginalized communities will rise in the aftermath of the earthquake because they and their families have lost everything and are now living in tents or temporarily shelters. 

'That makes them a vulnerable target.'

Police in India revealed in July they had arrested two traffickers who had smuggled 250 young women out of the disaster-hit country to work as slaves in the Gulf in the three months since the earthquake.

Worse, says Sunita, the girls are getting younger - with the people smugglers manipulating the age on underage trafficked girl’s identity papers.

The Indian officers rescued 21 young women on that occasion, as they readied to board a flight to Dubai. 

Shakti Samuha has had its own victories, stopping nine girls aged just 16 to 19 just minutes before they crossed the border, with the help of fellow charity Tiny Hands International.

‘We found that the girls had their passports in which it showed that they were going to be taken to a third country through India,’ Sunita explained. 

HUMAN TRAFFICKING: THE SICK TRADE WORTH £21BILLION A YEAR

Human trafficking is a booming business across the globe.

Those spiriting refugees across the sea to Europe have barely been out of the media for months, charging thousands to overfill their unseaworthy boats at constant risk of sinking into the depths of the Mediterranean.

But in Nepal, the smugglers are far less high profile - but no less prolific, or profitable. 

According to an in-depth study by the Nepalese charity Forum for Protection of People's Rights, supported by USAID and The Asia Foundation, human trafficking around the globe in its various forms is estimated to generate revenues from £6billion to £21billion.

It is thought 80 percent of the human trafficked victims worldwide are female and 50 percent of those are children.

An estimated 80 percent of those sold into sex slavery are under 24, and some are as young as six.

And it is thought around 30,000 victims of sex trafficking die each year from abuse, disease, torture, and neglect.

Half of the times when a victim is being sex trafficked, the recruiter knows the victim. The recruiters are equally men and women.

The teenagers were from the Shindhupalchowk District, to the east of Kathmandu. One of the worst hit in the May 12 aftershock, it has become a prime hunting ground for human traffickers.

But it was not just their youth taken in by the promises made by the smugglers: their own parents believed it would lead to a better life, accepting the 15,000 rupees (£92) from the trafficking agent to pay for a new passport.

Sunita said: ‘The women and girls are been giving false promises by the sex exploiters who often knows the families in advance and who untruthful tell them they will get good jobs and earn many money abroad if they travel with them to another country and that they will be able to support their poor families back home. 

'And the girls will most often believe them.’

Those who were too young to travel alone had their ages changed, and the families then waited for the call.

It came in June, when the girls were called to say their visas had arrived.

From there, they travelled to Kakarvitta, which is at the border to India in the far east of Nepal.

But the girls were lucky, caught by one of the charities which monitor the checkpoints, in the knowledge the smugglers regularly try to whisk their next victims across the border.

According to Tiny Hands International, statements from the girls and the alleged trafficker convinced officers they were being trafficked for the sex industry.

But this was a small victory for those who try so hard to save the girls from a life trapped in the brothels, or manual labour.

It is difficult to get exact figures, but the Nepalese government and Nepalese charity organisations believes the number has increased within the last decades - with some victims as young as six.

Officially, there were just 15 human trafficking cases reported during April and May - when the earthquakes struck. 

But the number is likely to much higher, according to the charities, with most ending up in the brothels of India, or working in the Gulf, but some have been found dancing in bars in Tanzania.

And despite laws which threaten up to 20 years in prison and fines of £1,700, there is no let up in the numbers.

The implementation of the law, Sunita says, has been weak. 

‘Although check points has been set up to check for suspected human trafficking and thousands of Nepalese women and children have been trafficked, only a few hundred traffickers have been convicted,’ Sunita notes.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3218299/I-forced-serve-30-men-day-seven-days-week-former-sex-slave-fighting-save-underage-girls-sex-traffickers-looking-make-fortune-Nepal-s-devastation.html#ixzz3kZjD37EH
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