Poonam’s shift began at five in the morning and she is starting to feel a little bored. But then someone passes by who catches her interest. "Stop! Stop! Where are you going?"

Poonam stops an approaching bicycle taxi. In the passenger seat sits an older man with a young girl by his side. The man becomes irritated. “Who are you? What right do you have to stop me?” he asks.

Poonam has no uniform and looks like an ordinary girl, dressed in a white patterned sari and sandals. This is intentional. No one should be able to tell that she is a border guard. Poonam takes out her ID card where it says she works for Maiti Nepal. She explains: "We work to stop girls from being smuggled into India, so I would like to ask you some questions. How do you know each other? Where are you going?”
   It turns out that the girl is his niece and they are going to visit relatives in India. The man shows papers to prove who they are and Poonam lets them go.

Saving many girls

“We check all the girls who pass the frontier. Even when they travel with women. You can easily recognize girls from the villages by their clothing and by how they speak. We always ask for their ID, where they are going and other such things.

Poonam and another girl, Sabita, stand on either side of the road. The young border guards always work in pairs. Maiti has a small house where people are taken for questioning. “If we’re not sure about somebody we try to contact their relatives. And we question the man and the girl separately. We only allow them to travel on if their answers match.

Poonam has saved several girls on their way to being smuggled to India. ”We take the men to the police and the girl must come with us to the Maiti Centre. We locate her family and send her home.

Lured to India

It is a kind of revenge for Poonam every time she manages to catch a girl-trafficker. She was sold to a brothel in India herself when she was 14. “My father died when I was five. I was forced to leave school in the ninth grade, because our family is poor. My best friend and I began to work as waitresses at a restaurant in the capital, Kathmandu.”

Eventually, Poonam became good friends with a boy who came to the restaurant every day. “It felt as if Rudra was my brother. I really trusted him. One day he asked my friend and I if we wanted to visit a temple the next day. It was located up on a mountain far from Kathmandu, and you could make wishes up there. I said no, but my friend convinced me to go.”

Poonam’s big sister came along too. They had decided to only go for the day, but when they arrived everything was closed so they had to spend the night at an inn. ”There were three boys with us – Rudra, Fistey and Bikash. The next day, Bikash said he had a shop in India that he needed to buy goods for. We refused to go with them, but they forced us. We went to a town in India where we stayed for a few days.”

The girls were taken further on by train and taxi. Rudra said that they were going to visit his sister. Now Poonam started to worry. She wanted to go home – people must be wondering where she was. But Rudra, who had been so nice to her in Nepal, now showed a whole other side to his nature.

Sold as a slave

“They brought us to a house and Rudra dragged us into a small room. It was very hot in there and I asked if we could go out, but he said no. We asked them to take us back to Kathmandu and they promised we would return home soon. But when we tried to leave the room they stopped us.”

When Poonam tried to open a window to get a little air she saw some girls wearing lipstick who were standing in the street. “I tried to leave, but Rudra hit me in the head with a belt and I started to bleed. My clothes were covered in blood and my sister, who can’t stand to see blood, cried and cried. I lay unconscious on the floor, but through the haze I saw the boys take money from a wallet, saying they had sold us. We said that had they asked us we could have given them money. We begged them to take us back to Nepal, but they just laughed at us and said we would never be able to raise enough money.”

When Poonam regained consciousness, a woman who owned the brothel appeared. She said the sisters were sold and must start work immediately. Then Poonam and her sister were separated. “I was taken to another house. When I refused to work, the brothel owner hit me... first over the chest with a sandal, then with a wooden ladle. What could I do? I was totally helpless. I told my first customer that I had never done this before and begged him to help me escape. He said that on Saturdays a lot of people came to the brothel and that he would help me then. He didn’t touch me. But the brothel owner heard them talking and moved Poonam to another brothel. And she was beaten again.

Death threats

Life at the brothel was like being in prison. The girls lived in small crowded rooms and were never allowed out. “We were 30 girls at the brothel, most of us from Nepal, but they didn’t let us become friends with each other. Some girls talked about escaping and made plans, but somebody always told on them, and then they were beaten. The brothel owner threatened us and said she would bury us under the house if we did anything stupid. I was scared, but the thing that kept me going was that I planned to escape from the very beginning. I made an impression of the door key in soap which I gave to customers and asked them to have copies made.

Finally, after five months, Poonam was rescued. It was Maiti in Mumbai (Bombay) that had received information that there were children in the brothel and contacted the police. 21 girls were saved at that time. Poonam came home to Nepal and was allowed to live at Maiti's Centre in Katmandu. ”I was so happy!”

Poonam’s Revenge

Poonam had her revenge when she managed to have Rudra put into jail. The other girls, who were saved with Poonam, had also been sold by him. Together they could give the police information that led to Rudra’s arrest. Poonam was reunited with her sister whom she hadn’t seen in so long. She had managed to escape and lived at the Maiti’s Centre in Katmandu too.

“When I think about my time in the brothel I only want to cry. It is like a nightmare. If I had known more about the slave trade with girls I wouldn’t have been so easily deceived. So, I want to stay at Maiti and try to prevent other girls from experiencing the terrible things that happened to me. 



Maitis Border Centres

Maiti Nepal has centres at three posts on the border with India. Maiti's staff work together with the police to save girls who are being smuggled over the border. Maiti trains girls to become border guards. Many of the girls have themselves been smuggled over the border so they know what to look for. Many of the girls worked in carpet factories when they were tricked into going to India.

Girls come first to the Centre after being rescued at the border. Either they are sent home to their families or allowed to stay for a few months. They learn everything about the slave trade in girls and they also learn to read and write and make clothing. This is also where the girls who are saved from brothels in India come first. They get treatment if they are ill and can rest and recuperate in a warm and secure environment before they are sent back to Katmandu.