January 3: Some 444 women and girls who reached various nations for foreign jobs from western Nepal in 2022 have gone missing. The data is based on the applications submitted at Maiti Nepal, Nepalgunj chapter in 2022 with the requests for their search.    
The organisation’s Nepalgunj coordinator Keshab Koirala said that Maiti Nepal received 693 applications for finding the whereabouts of missing people. Out of the 693 missing people, 249 were found.

Families and relatives of the women and girls who lost contact with them after reaching India and third countries have sought the organisation’s help to find their whereabouts.    
Similarly, 529 women and girls who were believed to be at risk were turned back from the Jamunaha transit point along the Nepal-India border in Banke.

During the interrogations, they were found to have left their home for employment or a foreign trip without consulting their family. Most of them were from Surkhet.

Koirala believes that the use of social networking sites and lack of digital security have further fueled the issues of human trafficking and smuggling. -- RSS