Sex Trafficking Survivors Get Legal Training

• Author: Cristin Wilson
• Pages: 9-9

Opening

Statements

PHOTOGRAPH BY ALISON WRIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

EDITED BY LIANE JACKSON / LIANE.JACKSON@AMERICA NBAR.ORG

Sex Traffi cking Survivors

Get Legal Training

Nepalese paralegals increase access to justice

IN NEPAL, GENDER VIOLENCE and sex

tra cking often go unreport ed. Survivors

usually don’t know their legal rights, and they

face community stigma and mistreat ment by police

in one of the world’s epicenters of human tra cking.

Samraksha k Samuha Nepal, or Sasane for short,

is working to change that by empowering sex traf-

fi cking sur vivors through legal training and jobs.

Sasane funds paralega l classes to help survivors

become fi nancia lly independent and serve as leaders

and legal resources for victims and their community.

The participants are women and girls between

the ages of 14 and 25. The paralegals are placed

at police stations across Nepal with the goal of

increasing access to justice. Their visibil ity garners

the trust of those who traditionally have little con-

fi dence in law enforcement.

“The police realized there was an increase in

reporting. Women and girls feel safe coming for-

ward,” says Radha Friedman, dire ctor of programs

for the World Justice Project.

Friedman says many people rescued from sex

tra cking were tricked into it. Poor girls and

women who thought they were start ing a job or

getting married were forced into prostitution, often

cross-border. Nepal was one of a dozen recipients

of a World Justice Project grant in 2014 that helped

fund the ongoing program. The WJP was founded in

2006 as a presidential initiative of the American Bar

Association and transitioned into an independent

nonprofi t in 2009. The ABA, which works with the

WJP on rule of law issues, provided seed money, and

Sasane secured additional fu nding.

About 45 paralegals graduate from the Nepal

program each year. Sasane’s director, Shyam

Pokharel, says additional funding is needed to

continue and expand the progra m.

“The sex tra cking survivors are legal ly empowered,”

Pokharel says, “and the legal knowledge ha s been shared

[with] the paralegal’s family, relatives a nd friends,” com-

pounding the benefi ts.

Friedman als o says Sasane is having a real impact on

the communities it serves. S he adds that thousands of

women have been helped by the paralegals, who a ssist

with fi ling complaints, providing legal serv ices and

rescuing other women from abuse and sex t ra cking.

—Cristin Wi lson

EMPOWERED: Teen traffi cking survivors who were raised in rural villages

intern as paralegals at a police station in Kathmandu, Nepal.

MARCH 2018 ABA JOURNAL || 9