Maya's Story [Victim Testimony #3]

(from “Rape for Profit,” by Human Rights Watch Asia, 1995)

"Maya" is from a small village in Nuwakot district. She was married to a man from a nearby village when she was around thirteen.

…In 1990 a fellow villager began visiting the house. The second time he came to visit, he brought another man along. They invited Maya and her husband to come out to see a movie. Maya’s husband told her to go ahead without him. The three of them boarded a bus, which Maya said kept going farther and farther from Kathmandu. Eventually, they went through the border at Kakarvitta. They were never stopped or questioned by the police.

Not Sold but Stolen [Victim Testimony #2]

from Shared Hope International

Gina was a young child -- only nine years old -- living with her family in a small village in Nepal. Gina wasn't sold. She was stolen.

Drugged with a "sweet drink" by a friend, Gina awoke on a train – never to see her family again. When Gina arrived in Bombay after a three-day journey, she remembers being grabbed by the hand, rushed down a crowded street through "a sea of legs" to a dingy brothel. They put makeup on her face and then the "seasoning" process began.

She Hoped to Become a Film Star [Victim Testimony #1]

(from “The Rape of 100,000 Girls,” by Helen Brown)

Seema had left the poverty of her home village to work in Kathmandu. She was barely twelve when a smooth-talking flesh trader lured her to Bombay with talk of a better job. She hoped to become a film star. Instead she was sold into a brothel.

At first she resisted, screaming, crying and fighting off prospective customers, but the madam who ran the brothel would have none of it. She sent in a muscled toughie to hold the girl down while an old man raped her. The pain was so intense that Seema lost consciousness and had to be hospitalized for a week. After that it was back to the brothel where the other child prostitutes told her she could not win this battle.