For the waitresses and female cooks, Maiti Café in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu is much, much more than a workplace: they have all been rescued from human trafficking.
The initiative aims to help the women rebuild their lives while also reshaping how people in the conservative nation view and treat the survivors. In Nepal, thousands – as much as 26,000 in 2016 – of victims are trafficked each year, often from neighboring India.
“I don’t want to look back at that dark part of my life,” Preeti, a survivor and Maiti Café waitress, 26, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “I’m looking forward to building my skills and confidence in what I am doing now.”
Guest Sunil Bhatta, a 22-year-old college student, says that it doesn’t matter what the women did in the past, adding, “They are well-mannered, polite and hard working. It’s good they are running the cafe and making a living for themselves.”
Maiti Café, set up by anti-trafficking charity Maiti Nepal, with A’fno Nepal and Free a Girl, has hired 12 women who earn the equivalent of around $120 a month, a decent salary in Nepal, where 20% of the population lives on under $1.25 a day. The café aims to keep hiring in the next year to help other underprivileged people in need of a fresh start in life.
