Nepal

Kathmandu, June 22

Human traffickers have been exploiting Nepali women and girls through sex trafficking and domestic servitude in Nepal, India, the Middle East, especially Gulf countries, Asia, and East Africa, including Kenya, says the 2019 Trafficking in Persons Report released by the US Department of State.

The report, which was released yesterday, has classified Nepal as a Tier 2 country, which means that the Government of Nepal does not fully meet the minimum standards for elimination of trafficking although it is making significant efforts towards this end. It said that Nepal remained on Tier 2 as the government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period.

&Traffickers subject Nepali men, women, and children to forced labour in Nepal, India, the Middle East, Asia, including Malaysia and Japan, and Europe, including Portugal in farms and in construction, factories, mines, domestic work, begging and the adult entertainment industry,& the report says. Some manpower agencies and individual agents engage in fraudulent recruitment practices and impose high fees to facilitate forced labour. Unregistered migrants, including the large number of young Nepali women who transit India or men and women who rely on unregistered recruitment agents, are particularly vulnerable to forced labour and sex trafficking.

Some Nepali women, who agree to arranged marriages through Nepali companies to men in China and South Korea, may face fraud and domestic servitude. Traffickers subject some migrants who transit Nepal en route to the Middle East to human trafficking, including Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans, who use falsified Nepali travel documents.

According to the report, some government officials accept bribes to include false information in Nepali identity documents or provide fake documents to prospective labour migrants, which allows recruiters to evade recruitment regulations.

Traffickers take advantage of more relaxed pre-departure screenings at Kolkata and Chennai airports or bribe Indian officials in New Delhi and Mumbai to fly Nepali migrant workers to third countries without proper documentation, which increases the workers& vulnerability to trafficking.

Traffickers also transport Nepali labour trafficking victims through Sri Lanka and Myanmar en route to destination countries. &Within Nepal, bonded labour of adults and children exists in agriculture, brick kilns, the stone-breaking industry, and domestic work. While government officials denied, children regularly worked in brick kilns, NGOs continued to report children carrying loads, preparing bricks and performing other tasks at kilns for extended periods,& the report read.

Traffickers subject Nepali and Indian children to forced labour in embellished textile(zari industry), carpet factories and stone quarries. Traffickers increasingly subject Nepali girls and boys to sex trafficking in Nepal on the streets and in the adult entertainment sector, including dance bars, massage parlours, and cabin restaurants, a type of brothel, it said. Sex trafficking of Nepali women and girls increasingly takes place in private apartments, rented rooms, guest houses and restaurants. Traffickers also subject transgender persons to sex trafficking in Nepal.

The report said that police reported an increasing trend of AES businesses, recruiting Nepali female employees for employment abroad in the same sector, which increases vulnerability to sex trafficking. NGOs allege some police and political party leaders are complicit in sex trafficking because of their financial involvement in the AES.

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Kathmandu, June 22

Bir Hospital shut down its CT scan service yesterday after radiation was found leaking from its highly shielded room.

The hospital has closed its services upon the recommendation of Nepal Academy of Science and Technology as a monitoring team from NAST found higher level of radiation in areas around the CT scan room. It has suggested that the hospital adopt protection measures against radiation leakage. The hospital had fixed a new CT scan machine six months ago.

Immediate exposure to high level of radiation will harm blood and skin cells. Effect of radiation on gonads, one of the reproductive organs in a male or female can lead to birth defects in babies, said Dan Bahadur Karki, president of Nepal Radiologist Association.

Skin burns can occur when exposed to higher level of radiation. A long term exposure to radiation could result in cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The early symptoms of sickness from radiation are nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea.

Radiation leakages can occur in hospitals due to defects in X-ray machines or when proper shielding of the X-ray room is not maintained. To prevent radiation leakage lead shielding is necessary, said Buddha R Shah, a senior scientist at Physical Science Laboratory, Faculty of Science, NAST.

The hospital is unsure of resuming the services any time soon as it lacks enough budget for repair and maintenance of the CT scan room. &It costs around 20-25 lakh to maintain the room. We don&t have enough budget. It takes two to three months for any maintenance work at the hospital incurring a cost of above Rs five lakh as the hospital administration has to go through a tender process,& said Kedar Century, director at the hospital.

We are looking for alternatives and are considering moving the machine to a room that has an old CT scan machine. If this is done, the CT scan service can be resumed after a week, according to Century.

At least 70 patients benefit from CT scan service at the hospital on a daily basis. A CT scan service costs around 2,500 to 4,500 depending on the type of scan.

The monitoring team on June 17 had concluded that the level of radiation was ten times higher than the background level. It was found to be 2.12 microsievert per hour on the console room — main room of the CT scan, which contains a computer display and a keyboard that control the scanner. The monitoring was done on the window lead glass of the CT scan room.

It had also detected 1.02 microsievert per hour of radiation in the room — one metre away from the window lead glass. The team had also recorded high level of radiation at the entrance lead door and in the waiting room. &Protection is required whenever the leaked radiation is ten times higher than the background level. The body concerned should increase the thickness of lead. They should properly shield the door,& said Shah.

The team had monitored the area upon the request of the hospital after a leakage was suspected.

According to Safety Standards Occupational Radiation Protection, the safety guide of International Atomic Energy Agency, for occupational exposure of workers over the age of 18 years, radiation dose limit is 20 millisieverts per year for over five consecutive years (100 mSv in 5 years) and 50 mSv in any single year.

&For the public, the minimum permissible level of radiation absorption is 1 millisievert per year,& said Karki.

Radiation is measured using the unit sievert, which quantifies the amount of radiation absorbed by human tissues. One sievert is equivalent to 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) and one millisievert is equivalent to 1,000 microsieverts.

&Lead glasses are necessary to seal the passage of radiation.

The lead door of a CT scan room should always be closed,& said Karki. There is no proper monitoring mechanism for the leakage of radiation at hospitals.

Hospitals have been approaching NAST to monitor radiation level at their own. To track leakages in a CT scan room, NAST has been providing thermoluminescent dosimeter — a tool used for assessment by ionising radiation.

&If there is a higher reading in the tool then we try to find out the causes of increased radiation level. It helps to monitor the leakage from CT scan and X-ray machines, explained Shah.

The government should make it mandatory for hospitals to monitor such leakage on a regular basis, said Karki.

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