Kathmandu: A 67-year-old Nepali woman honoured with one of India's mostprestigious awards for freeing thousands of girls from sexual slavery said yesterday it was the unbearable pain of victims that has motivated her to fight trafficking.
Anuradha Koirala, founder of the anti-trafficking charity Maiti Nepal, will be presented the Padma Shri - one of the highest civilian awards - by India's president at a ceremony in March or April, said a government statement this week.
"Rescued and rehabilitated 12,000 sex trafficking victims and prevented over 45,000 from being trafficked," an infographic on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's website read, listing the names and achievements of some of the 89 Padma award winners. The small, frail teacher-turned-activist said she was encouraged by the award, and it would make her work harder to stop girls being bought and sold in the sex trade.
"The pain of victims has motivated me to continue my work," Koirala told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
"When I see their pain - their mental pain as well as physical pain - it is so troubling that I cannot turn myself away. This gives me strength to fight and root this crime out."
South Asia is one of the fastest-growing region for human trafficking in the world, according to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime.
Anti-slavery activists say thousands of people mostly from poor villages are trafficked from countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh to India by gangs who sell them into bonded labour or hire them out to unscrupulous employers. Many women and girls are sold into brothels. Others end up as domestic workers or labourers in brick kilns.
