Sex Work Trafficking and Social Acceptance: The State versus Local Perception

The government of Nepal has been continuously working with different partner organizations to control sex work trafficking.In collaboration with such different national and international organizations, the Government has been launching various awareness programs and mobilizing anti-trafficking cells.Despite such efforts, sex trafficking has not cooled down in Nepal, so to find out its underlying social causes, an empirical study is conducted with an exploratory research design.For the study, two key informants and three local informants were selected using the snowball method.Similarly, one focus group discussion was conducted with the locals of the study area.This paper explores that the state has overlooked working minutely to build a stable family that provides primary socialization to their children.The state has also failed to provide sustainable livelihood to the locals as well as proper provisions for the rehabilitation of sex workers (returnees).Further, the state considered sex trafficking as a crime whereas the locals of the study area are accepting sex work as a normal household economic strategy.The monetary value that girls or women earn from sex work has been linked with their social prestige.However, in the tug-of-war between the state's intervention and local practices, the locals have now started opting for a middle path of validating girls' abroad travel for sex work by issuing passports.