Two Nepali children of Banke and Rupandehi are still stuck at a transit home in Ganjipur, Uttar Pradesh, India two months after being rescued. Although the government has been planning to bring the children back to Nepal, no action has yet been taken.
Indian activists rescued the children in May and left them in the transit home in Ganjipur. The activists then came to Nepal and informed officials about the situation.
“We have no money right now. As soon as the funds arrive we will depart for Ganjipur,” says Bindu Kunwar of the Women and Children Welfare Committee (WCWC) of Banke district.
It costs up to Rs 20,000 to travel to Ganjipur and back. Kunwar says her office has appealed to NGOs for help because they don’t see government support materialising any time soon.
The WCWC has also yet to get papers approved before it travels to India. Two weeks ago it wrote to NGOs for help and got a positive response, which officials believe could help the documents pass through the bureaucracy.
Locals of Nepalganj have repeatedly petitioned the district administration to set up a fund to rescue trafficked children but the WCWC is yet to do so officially. Because of the porous border with India, police cannot monitor who travels back and forth, and locals complain that child trafficking is rampant.