Like any other mother who yearns for a better life for her family, Lalita* (26) considered flying out of the country to make more money to send home. She knows who she is: she knows she is hardworking and easily teachable. So when a man who claimed to be a foreign employment agent promised her a job in Cyprus, Egypt, she excitedly said yes. Afterall, she did not have to worry about other things like visa, documents, and other hefty fees to process her departure. The man said that his agency will handle it all.
Trusting him, she let him arrange her flight to Kathmandu as all the processing would happen there. But once she reached the capital, things began to feel suspicious. Her phone was taken under the pretense of handling “paperwork,” and she was told not to contact anyone. Her excitement fizzled a bit, and she felt something that didn’t quite sit well in her gut.
Soon after, she was told she had to go to India briefly “for processing” before finally being sent to Cyprus. She thought, Why do I need to go to India when I’m already in Kathmandu? Still, her desire to provide for her family outweighed whatever peculiarity in the situation that she was sensing. So despite the confusion, she still complied. Afterall, she’s ‘almost there’.
She was then escorted toward Nepal–India at the border by a woman she had never met before. At the border, her palpable nervousness caught our staff’s attention. We immediately approached her for questioning, yet she could not provide details about her travel documents, the job in Cyprus, or why she was being taken to India. The woman who accompanied her butted in and gave vaguely conflicting statements.
We knew we needed to act fast because it had become a parade of red flags at that point. We separated the two and counseled Lalita privately. Instead of seeing our intervention as an inconvenience to her travel, she seemed more relieved. She confessed that she had been promised a job in Cyprus but never saw any real paperwork or flight details. She also doesn’t know why she is on her way to India. She had been feeling trapped until we intercepted her because at that point, she felt like she could not say no to them anymore.
The team quickly identified this as a case of human trafficking under the guise of foreign employment. The woman escorting her was handed over to the police for further investigation, while Lalita was taken to a safe home for counseling, emotional support, and protection.
For weeks, this has been the most clarifying moment for her. None of the things she was asked to do made sense to her, but when we explained the dangers of human trafficking, everything finally clicked. Her gut had been telling her she was in danger all along; she just needed someone else to explain it to her.
She shared that she felt scared after experiencing an almost-trafficking experience firsthand. She cannot believe how thousands of women are actually left unintercepted, unlike her. She cannot imagine what lives they might be living right now and how that could have been her. Because of this experience, Lalita said that she would no longer pursue foreign employment in the meantime. And if she did, she would only do so with clear, proper, and legitimate procedures.
As she bid farewell and reunited with her sister, she looked our staff in the eye and promised to raise awareness in her community so no one she knows falls under the same trap.
*Name changed for privacy.
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