Human Trafficking and Transportation Act in Nepal (2026) Guide

Human trafficking is one of the most serious organised crimes that Nepali law confronts. The Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act 2064 (2007) is the primary statute — passed to replace the older Human Trafficking (Control) Act 2043 (1986) and align Nepali law with international anti-trafficking instruments including the UN Palermo Protocol 2000 and the SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution 2002. The Act defines trafficking and transportation as distinct offences, sets punishment from ten years' imprisonment to life, establishes a Victim Compensation Fund, provides identity protection, and gives District Courts original jurisdiction over the cases.

This 2026 (2083 BS) guide explains how trafficking and transportation law operates in Nepal — the statutory definitions of trafficking (selling and buying persons, prostitution, slavery, forced labour, organ removal) and transportation (taking a person out of Nepal or from one place to another within Nepal for the purposes of trafficking); the punishment bands that scale with the form of exploitation; the cross-border dimension at the Nepal–India open border and the Gulf labour migration route; the overlap with the Foreign Employment Act 2064 for labour trafficking cases; the victim-protection framework with identity protection and in-camera trial; the Compensation Fund; the National Human Rights Commission monitoring role; and the international cooperation framework including the Palermo Protocol and SAARC Convention.

Alpine Law Associates — Nepal Bar Council-registered criminal and human-rights team handling trafficking prosecutions, victim representation, cross-border cases and Foreign Employment Act overlap matters.

Speak with our lawyers today →

What is human trafficking under the Act 2064?

Section 4 of the Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act 2064 defines trafficking as the doing of any of the following acts: (a) selling or buying a person for any purpose; (b) using a person in prostitution; (c) extracting human organs except for treatment purposes prescribed by law; or (d) engaging a person in prostitution. The core idea is that trafficking is the treatment of a human being as a commodity — as something that can be sold, bought, exploited for sexual services, exploited for labour, or harvested for organs. The Act treats trafficking as a fundamental violation of human dignity protected under Article 16 of the Constitution of Nepal 2072 (2015).

The Act is wide in its reach. It does not require that the victim be a particular gender, age or nationality. It does not require that the victim cross any national border (transportation is the separate offence covering the movement element). It does not require that any specific exploitation actually occur — the agreement to sell or buy a person is itself the offence even where the contemplated exploitation is interrupted before it begins. The mens rea is the knowledge or intent that the person being dealt with is being treated as a commodity for the prohibited purpose.

What is transportation as a separate offence?

Section 4 of the Act 2064 also defines transportation: taking a person out of Nepal for the purpose of buying and selling, taking a person from one place to another within Nepal for the purpose of buying and selling, or taking a person from one's home, place, or person of authority by enticement, persuasion, misinformation, allurement, coercion, abduction, hostage-taking, or by abuse of power. Transportation captures the movement element separately from the trafficking exploitation. The same offender may be guilty of both trafficking (the buying-selling agreement) and transportation (the act of moving the victim).

The distinction matters in practice. Where the offender both arranges the trafficking and personally transports the victim, the District Attorney charges both offences and the court sentences on the aggregate. Where one offender arranges the trafficking and a separate offender provides the transportation (a recruiter who hands the victim to a transporter who hands the victim to a destination operator), each is charged with the offence corresponding to their role. The Act criminalises participation at every stage of the trafficking chain, which is essential because organised trafficking operations divide the labour to insulate the principals from direct evidence of exploitation.

Punishment ranges under the Act 2064

Section 15 of the Act 2064 sets the punishment ladder. The principal bands are:

• Selling or buying a person. Imprisonment for 10 to 20 years and a fine up to NPR 200,000.
• Forcing into prostitution. Imprisonment for 10 to 15 years and a fine up to NPR 150,000.
• Removing human organs (except for treatment). Imprisonment for 10 to 20 years and a fine.
• Engaging a person in prostitution. Imprisonment for 7 to 15 years and a fine.
• Transportation for trafficking purposes (out of Nepal). Imprisonment for 10 to 15 years and a fine up to NPR 150,000.
• Transportation within Nepal for trafficking purposes. Imprisonment for 5 to 10 years and a fine.
• Aiding or abetting trafficking. Half the punishment of the principal offence.
• Aggravated trafficking — child victim. Higher bands within the ladder, with up to life imprisonment in the most serious cases.

Repeat offenders face enhanced punishment. The Penal Code 2074 supplements the Act where the conduct also amounts to a Penal Code offence — kidnapping under Section 211 (see our kidnapping and hostage law guide), rape under Section 219, organised crime under the Organised Crime Prevention Act 2070, and money laundering under the Asset Laundering Prevention Act 2064. The District Court runs concurrent charges and sentences on the highest applicable band.

How does the Nepal–India open border shape trafficking enforcement?

The 1,770-kilometre open border between Nepal and India is the single largest operational challenge for trafficking enforcement. Victims can be moved between the two countries without passport, without visa, and without any documentary trail at the regular border-crossing points. Cross-border trafficking is the dominant pattern in Nepali trafficking cases, with destinations including red-light districts in Indian cities, domestic-service exploitation in Indian households, and onward routing through India to Gulf states.

Enforcement runs through police-to-police cooperation, the Nepal–India Extradition Treaty 1953, and joint anti-trafficking arrangements between Nepal Police and Indian state police (particularly Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal whose territories share the border). The Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau within Nepal Police coordinates rescue operations, intelligence sharing, and victim repatriation. NGO partners (Maiti Nepal, Shakti Samuha, ABC Nepal, and others) provide ground-level identification and rescue support at border crossings and in destination cities. The international framework — Palermo Protocol 2000 and SAARC Convention 2002 — formalises the cooperation obligations but the day-to-day work runs on bilateral arrangements.

Foreign Employment Act overlap — labour trafficking

A significant share of Nepali trafficking cases involves Gulf labour migration through fraudulent or exploitative recruitment. Workers are recruited with promises of well-paid employment in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Malaysia or other destinations; on arrival, they find conditions different from those promised — wages withheld, passports confiscated, accommodation overcrowded, work hours excessive, movement restricted. The pattern overlaps with both the Act 2064 (where the recruitment crosses the trafficking threshold) and the Foreign Employment Act 2064 (where the recruiter or manpower company has violated foreign-employment law).

The Department of Foreign Employment and the Foreign Employment Tribunal handle the FEA-side adjudication; the District Court handles the Act 2064 trafficking prosecution; the two run in parallel. For affected workers, the practical route is dual filing: a foreign-employment complaint against the manpower company for recovery of wages and compensation, and a criminal complaint against any individual whose conduct meets the trafficking threshold. Our criminal litigation team coordinates both lines where the facts engage both statutes. Where the manpower company itself is the offender, registration aspects covered in our law firm corporate practice intersect with the criminal case.

Victim protection and the Compensation Fund

The Act 2064 sets up a victim-protection framework recognising that trafficking victims face severe stigma, trauma and ongoing risk from offenders. The principal protections are:

• Identity confidentiality. The victim's name and identifying details are not disclosed in public proceedings or media reporting.
• In-camera trial. Court proceedings can be held in camera, with public and media excluded, where the victim's privacy or safety requires.
• Video and screen testimony. Where the victim is a child, faces intimidation, or is psychologically unable to face the offender directly, video-link or screen testimony is permitted.
• Witness protection. Where the victim or witnesses face threats, the Anti-Human-Trafficking Bureau coordinates protection arrangements during and after the trial.
• Rehabilitation services. The Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens (MoWCSC) coordinates rehabilitation through government-run shelters and NGO partners, providing medical care, psychological counselling, vocational training and reintegration support.
• Compensation Fund. The Act establishes a Compensation Fund financed by court-ordered fines paid by convicted offenders, supplemented by government grants. Compensation covers medical treatment, rehabilitation costs, lost income and resettlement.

Compensation is available before final conviction in appropriate cases — the victim does not have to wait years for the criminal trial to conclude. The parallel framework under the Crime Victim Protection Act 2075 provides additional remedies; the two regimes can be applied together where eligibility is met. Our Victim Protection Act 2075 guide sets out the broader victim-rights framework.

What is the role of the Anti-Human-Trafficking Bureau?

The Anti-Human-Trafficking Bureau within Nepal Police is the specialised unit responsible for trafficking investigation. It operates at the national level and through district-level focal officers. Its functions include intelligence collection on trafficking networks, rescue operations at border crossings and destination locations, coordination with Indian counterparts and international agencies, victim identification and initial protection, and case-building for District Attorney handover. The Bureau's specialised expertise — language skills for inter-state operations, understanding of trafficking patterns, established relationships with NGO partners and Indian police — is essential for effective trafficking investigation.

For victims and families, contact with the Bureau directly or through the local police station triggers the investigation. The Bureau can mobilise rescue operations within hours where the victim's location is known, and within days where intelligence work is needed. Time is critical — trafficking victims are typically moved through a chain of locations, and delay reduces the probability of recovery. Engaging counsel in parallel with the Bureau intervention ensures the victim's legal rights are protected from the rescue onwards, including the immediate Compensation Fund application, in-camera trial request, and parallel civil claims.

Cross-border cooperation under the Palermo Protocol and SAARC Convention

Nepal is party to two principal international anti-trafficking instruments. The UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol 2000), supplements the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and provides the global framework — prevention, prosecution and protection (the "3P" framework). The SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution 2002 is the regional instrument among South Asian countries. Both have been incorporated into Nepali practice through the Act 2064 and procedural arrangements.

Cross-border cooperation in concrete cases runs through several channels: mutual legal assistance requests under the SAARC Convention; police-to-police cooperation under bilateral arrangements; Interpol Red Notices and information-sharing for the most serious cases; embassy-level coordination for victims requiring repatriation; and NGO-NGO partnerships for ground-level identification and victim support. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs coordinate the diplomatic and law-enforcement legs of the cooperation; the Anti-Human-Trafficking Bureau is the operational lead.

NHRC monitoring and the annual trafficking report

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has a constitutional mandate under Article 249 of the Constitution of Nepal 2072 to monitor human-rights violations including trafficking. The NHRC publishes an annual report on trafficking in persons, drawing on data from Nepal Police, the District Attorney's office, district court statistics, NGO partners and victim interviews. The report documents prevalence, patterns, prosecution outcomes, victim support, and recommendations to the government and law-enforcement agencies. For advocacy and litigation purposes, the NHRC report is the authoritative document on the trafficking landscape in Nepal.

The Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens (MoWCSC) is the policy lead, coordinating the National Plan of Action on anti-trafficking, the National Committee for Controlling Human Trafficking, and the District Committees at provincial level. Implementation involves the Ministry of Home Affairs (law enforcement), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (diplomatic cooperation and consular protection of Nepali workers abroad), the Department of Foreign Employment (recruitment regulation), the Nepal Police Anti-Trafficking Bureau, and the NHRC (monitoring). The multi-agency framework is necessary because trafficking touches employment, migration, criminal justice and victim welfare across multiple government domains.

Defences in a trafficking prosecution

The principal defences available to an accused in a trafficking prosecution are: (a) absence of mens rea — the accused did not know and could not have known that the person was being treated as a commodity for the prohibited purpose; (b) consent of the person dealt with — limited and narrowly construed under the Act, because consent of a child is no defence and consent of an adult obtained by fraud, threat or coercion is invalid; (c) absence of any prohibited purpose — the dealing was for a lawful purpose unrelated to the Act's prohibition list; and (d) mistaken identity — the accused was not the person who carried out the act, supported by alibi evidence.

The defences engage the general principles of criminal liability set out in Chapter 3 of the Penal Code and explained in our criminal liability principles guide. The burden of proof remains with the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt, but the trafficking-evidence regime under Section 9 of the Act eases the prosecution's task in specific respects — for example, where the accused is found in possession of the victim or in a location associated with trafficking exploitation, the burden shifts to the accused to explain the circumstances. Defence preparation must address the shifted burdens specifically.

How can Alpine Law Associates help with trafficking cases?

Alpine Law Associates handles trafficking matters from both sides — as victim's counsel supporting prosecution and rehabilitation, and as defence counsel for accused persons. For victims, we coordinate immediate engagement with the Anti-Human-Trafficking Bureau and rescue partners, file the FIR, support the District Attorney prosecution, apply for in-camera trial and identity protection, file the Compensation Fund application, run any parallel Foreign Employment Tribunal claim where the case involves recruitment fraud, and pursue civil damages claims against the offenders' personal assets.

For accused persons, we run the defence from police interrogation through trial, structured around the specific facts of involvement, knowledge and the available statutory and procedural defences. We handle bail applications, sentencing arguments under the Sentencing Act 2074 within the Act 2064 bands, and the 35-day appeal route to the High Court and onward to the Supreme Court. As a full-service criminal-law practice, we coordinate trafficking cases with related criminal, family, foreign-employment and corporate workstreams in a single counsel relationship.

Speak with our lawyers today →

Last reviewed: April 2026