The Patan High Court has sentenced Gyanendra Chanara and Sunita Murmur, who were acquitted by the Kathmandu District Court, for 20 years for trafficking of one Rukum woman to Syria.
The Patan High Court has also increased the sentence of Shyam Dangol, who was jailed for 10 years by the Kathmandu District Court, to 20 years.
The bench of Yagya Raj Bhatta and Tek Narayan Kunwar has also ordered the trio to pay Rs 200,000 each to the woman in compensation, and fined the trio Rs 200,000 each.
Chanara, who is her brother-in-law in relation, Murmur, and Dangol had brought the woman from Rukum to Kathmandu on April 14, 2014 and then took her to India via Kakarbhitta. She was taken to Dubai from Kolkata five days later and then to Syria where she was sold for US$ 7,000.
She was sexually exploited, physically and mentally tortured and forced to work without food in the home in Syria where she was sold. She was sent back to the office, that sent her to the home, by the family after she fell ill.
She was tortured at the office where she stayed for two months before being sent back to Nepal after her family paid Rs 200,000 to the office.
After returning to Nepal, she filed a trafficking case with the police against six including the trio, and Bhakte Pariyar, Top Raj Adhikari and one Kalpana, who had taken sent her to Dubai from Kolkata and then sent her to Syria.
The women expressed relief at the verdict of Patan High Court but added that she will feel peace only after Pariyar and Adhikari are also brought to book. "The court only punished the three. The two who sold me are still roaming freely. I will not get justice until they are jailed," she told Setopati. "I will not feel safe until they are free."
