Girl-trafficking, HIV/AIDS, and the position of women in Nepal

Abstract

This article focuses on trafficking of young Nepalese girls and women. Trafficking is an integral part of the social and economic fabric of Nepal, as in other parts of the world. The practice causes intolerable degradation and suffering for the girls and young women involved, who are treated as a commodity. It presents a risk to their physical and mental health, and in particular to their sexual health. The article examines the connections between coercive sex work and HIV infection, and community and government responses to HIV infection among trafficked sex workers. In particular, it considers the current AIDS prevention and control programme in Nepal, and criticises it from the feminist perspective of the authors, who are a Nepalese nurse who has undertaken academic work in New Zealand related to women's health, and a New Zealand feminist academic, who is also a nurse.