And she is among even fewer who didn´t stop at just that. Tamang joined hands with survivors like herself to launch a war against trafficking and against a society that tends to view trafficking survivors as outcasts.
Born to a poor family in Haibung VDC, Sindhupalchowk, Tamang could not continue her studies after the fifth grade as further schooling meant hours of daily treks to a school located in another village. [break]
“In those times, work was more important than studies for village girls,” she recounted.
Tamang lost her father at the age of 15. By then, traffickers had already identified a vulnerable target in her, given the dire financial condition of her family.
Young and unaware that she was of the fate of girls mysteriously vanishing from her village, the usually cautious girl eventually fell into the trap laid by traffickers on the prowl. They sold her to sexual slavery in Kamatipura, India in 1994 when she was just 16.
For the 22 months that followed, she lived and re-lived hell for what seemed like an eternity.
Rescue and fightback
It was luck more than anything that rescued Tamang while her spirit to fight back was still alive and health still by her side.
In February 1996, the Indian police rescued 400 girls from brothels in Kamatipura. Of them, 200, including Tamang, were Nepalis.
(Photo: The Associated Presse)
“The Indian and Bangladeshi girls rescued from the brothels were soon sent back home. But we were kept in an Indian government facility for six months as there was no one from Nepal willing to take us back. The facility was like a prison,” she said.
In July that year, seven NGOs from Nepal managed to bring 128 of the girls, including Tamang, to Nepal.
Six months after returning to Nepal, Tamang traveled alone to her home district where she was unwelcome even in her own family.
She lodged a complaint at the district court against the four traffickers she knew were involved in selling her.
“Fighting the case was not easy. The society, including my own family, looked down upon me as an outcast. And the traffickers threatened to torch my house, and kill my elder brother if I didn´t withdraw the case,” she said.
Six months after the case was lodged, the court pronounced the four guilty and jailed them for 10 years each, while four of their accomplices whose names came to light in the course of investigation were jailed for 30 months each.
It was the first successful conviction in the district in a human trafficking case fought solely by the trafficked.
From personal fight to fight for all survivors
While the case at district court of Sindhupalchowk was still pending, Tamang attended a training organized by Dr Renu Raj Bhandari.
Fifteen survivors participated in the training in which Tamang realized that people like her had a larger responsibility of offering hope to thousands in the country who had gone or were going through what she had.
“Till then, I was fighting a personal fight. I realized that it would have limited results. There was a need for an organized fight against this modern-day slavery,” she said.
The training was instrumental in motivating the 15 survivors to start up Shakti Samuha, a non-governmental organization run by and for those trafficked into sexual slavery.
“Instead of endlessly complaining about what happened to us, we decided to use our anger and our awareness to fight for acceptance in society, and for saving many girls from falling into the clutches of trafficking agents,” she said.
(Photo: Keshab Thoker)
The Samuha today seeks to prevent trafficking. It also works on repatriation of trafficked girls, and their rehabilitation and integration into society. The Samuha today has 150 institutional members and is looking after 500 girls.
“We mentally prepare rescued girls so that they can take on the challenges of life. We equip them with skills to earn a livelihood. Since reintegration in home district is very difficult, we advice the girls to carefully choose between living a life free of discrimination in places other than their home districts and the difficult prospect of going back to their home district,” Tamang said, laying bare the indelible scars that trafficked girls have to live with.
Continued discrimination
When Tamang returned to her home district 15 years ago after almost two years in hell, her own family barred her from sharing kitchen and participating in rituals.
Little has changed since then.
“I recently went home and was overjoyed when I was allowed to light an oil-lamp to observe my mother´s death anniversary,” she said shedding light on the very little that has changed.
Tamang got married to a man from her home district in 2000. She has two daughters now, aged six and 10. But her past continues to haunt her family.
Puja Mahato, hostel coordinator of the Samuha, said marriages of almost all trafficking survivors are strained. “Our experience is that men can accept women who have faced other forms of violence, but not sexual,” Mahato said.
Recognition and responsibilities
Tamang´s flight against trafficking in women was recognized by the government of Nepal in 2007.
And last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton honored her with the 2011 Hero Acting to End Modern-Day Slavery Award during the release of the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report at the State Department in Washington.
Tamang is grateful for the recognition of her Samuha´s efforts, and is also mindful of the additional responsibilities her Samuha has now.
“We have been recognized as soldiers fighting against trafficking. Such recognition gives a message to the world and to those like us that there are people who have survived darkness and are waging a battle to secure acceptance in society as normal people. But the fight is difficult, and there are more girls looking up to us now,” she said.
Tamang maintains that as long as good education and reasonable opportunities are not available to girls in villages, trafficking agents will continue to find targets. “An empty stomach is always an easy target,” she said.
Tamang believes it is not just the traffickers who are responsible for the horror girls like her go through.
“There is always someone in the neighborhood, or in the village, who can identify the agents. But those in the know keep their daughters safe and do not care to alert unsuspecting girls. It is this silence of the society that traffickers continue to thrive on. It is this silence that sends little girls who could otherwise have normal, happy futures to brothels from where rescue and recovery is extremely difficult,” she said.
She hopes that someday the society will realize that its code of silence makes it an accomplice in one of the worst forms of crime known to the modern world.
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