00:00At a railway station on the India-Nepal border,
00:04security personnel, police officers and NGO workers
00:08are carrying out a joint operation.
00:10They are watching every passenger,
00:13looking for signs of human trafficking.
00:19Within moments, 18 children were rescued from the station.
00:31We meet this 14-year-old girl,
00:33who lives in a village just a few kilometres outside Kathmandu.
00:37A year ago, she was abducted by a young man
00:40and taken across the open border into the Indian state of Bihar.
00:44He came from the back,
00:49and gave him this to me.
00:52I didn't know anything.
00:54I didn't know anything.
00:56I didn't know anything.
00:57That's why,
00:58that's why,
00:58that's why,
00:59that's why,
01:01that's why,
01:02that's why,
01:03that's why,
01:03that's why,
01:05that's why,
01:09that's why.
01:10She believes,
01:11she would eventually have been sold into a larger trafficking network,
01:15had she not managed to seize her kidnapper's mobile phone
01:19in the middle of the night.
01:41Using the phone, she secretly contacted her family.
01:45Sometimes,
01:47they were frozen and swept away.
01:49They were saying,
01:50I was going to the toilet and talking.
01:57He was frozen and completely behind.
02:00They said,
02:00I said,
02:01You are not scared,
02:03everybody else are.
02:05The courage and quick thinking of the girl and her mother helped the police trace her location.
02:11In a joint operation involving law enforcement and an NGO, officers rescued the teenager and arrested the trafficker.
02:40The Indian-Nepal border is considered the largest human trafficking corridor in Asia.
03:03According to the United Nations estimates, at least 15,000 to 20,000 people are trafficked through this route every
03:10year to destinations around the world.
03:12Between India and Nepal, there are no official estimates for the trafficking of children and women.
03:21However, unofficial estimates believe that the number can be anywhere between 10,000 to 100,000 within the year.
03:32And that is so because trafficking is a process that results in exploitation.
03:37And till such time that a person is able to ascertain whether the victim was in fact exploited or not,
03:44it cannot be called as trafficking.
03:46Human trafficking is also an enormously profitable criminal enterprise.
03:51A United Nations report estimates that it generates around 50 billion US dollars in illegal profits every year.
03:58To combat this, hundreds of NGOs in India and Nepal have joined forces.
04:04Prominent child rights activist Bhuvan Ribhu has helped bring more than 100 organizations under one umbrella.
04:11These groups maintain constant communication across the border, creating a coordinated network to identify victims and stop traffickers before they
04:21disappear.
04:21If you do, what do you do, what will do? Who will save you? Not you, mom's mother at her
04:25house.
04:26You tell yourself...
04:26They are joint operations, and the data is a process.
04:30They are not required for a special strike.
04:33They are running for a special strike.
04:34They are running for a month, by the coordination of the work.
04:37They are not required for a coordination.
04:37And with the coordination of the coordination of the work they have to do with.
04:56The effort extends far beyond civil society.
05:00Border security forces, local police, railway police and NGOs
05:05regularly conduct coordinated rescue operations along the India-Nepal border.
05:10DW witnessed one such joint operation at the Biratnagar-Jogbani border crossing
05:15where officials worked together to identify potential trafficking victims
05:20before they could be taken across the border.
05:36It was during one such operation by the police and NGO workers
05:40that our young protagonist was finally rescued.
05:44She is now back home with her family.
05:47But although she escaped her traffickers,
05:49the trauma of what she endured continues to shape her life every single day.
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