Missing,
Not Lost
Prevent the Trafficking of Children and Young Adults
Click on these buttons to see what your support could do.
£65 would train 10 officials to identify and prevent trafficking
£150 would allow 2 trafficked children to be rescued and safely returned home
£250 would provide free legal advice, information and assistance for 100 people
£1,000would give 10 rehabilitated survivors entrepreneurship training and ongoing support to build sustainable livelihoods
Anita’s Story
We’ll call her Anita.
To the tourists visiting the “orphanage,” she looks like another child in need of help. They give donations, take photos and believe they’re doing good.
But when they leave, Anita isn’t taken to a classroom. She’s taken to a cramped, dark room, locked away out of sight with the other children. There’s no photo opportunities here – no food, no school and no contact with the outside world. At least until the next batch of travellers arrive.
Anita is not an orphan. She has a family who miss her. They were promised she’d be safe and educated in Kathmandu. But, like the tourists, they were lied to.
“Voluntourism”
Anita is one of thousands of children in Nepal who has been trafficked into an underground industry known as “orphanage tourism.” Families struggling with unimaginable poverty, desperate for a better life for their children, are tricked and manipulated by traffickers into sending their children to educational hostels in the city. These hostels are nothing but fronts — illegal institutions run by traffickers. There, children are abused, kept in terrible conditions and forced to pose as orphans to exploit the goodwill of well-meaning but misinformed visitors.
We’ve changed Anita’s name to protect her identity, but her story is very real. Fortunately, Anita was rescued by our partner in Nepal, reunited with her family and today is back in school. Anita escaped. Many others do not.
The Vanishing Ones
Across South Asia, children and young women vanish every day.
Some, like Anita, are seperated from their families.
Some are girls fleeing abusive homes, arriving alone at city train stations only to disappear from the platform into the hands of traffickers.
Some are lured from villages, sometimes through social media, with false promises of work or marriage. Taken across the Nepal–India border, they vanish; hidden in brothels, factories or domestic servitude.
Families left behind, desperately seeking answers, only find silence.
Missing, Not Lost
No child should be paraded for tourists.
No girl should be sold into domestic servitude.
No family should have their child stolen from them.
Our Solution
These young people are missing – but they are not lost.
They can be found, rescued and reunited with their families.
Their traffickers can be brought to justice.
And more young people being trafficked can be prevented.
With local partners, Karuna works with the most excluded communities – where the risk is the greatest – to confront trafficking at its roots:
Prevent
We engage with communities, providing information and practical outreach with workshops, girls’ groups and safe migration hubs, exposing traffickers’ lies and keeping young people aware and protected.
Respond
Our partners intercept traffickers at train stations and borders, rescue children from illegal “orphanages” and labour camps and reunite them with their families.
Rehabilitate
We provide quality long-term counselling to survivors and their families, safe re-enrolment back into education for children and skills training for surviving migrant workers and young adults for safe reintegration back into the workforce.
Reform
We support the enforcement of anti-trafficking laws, training police and frontline workers, helping survivors access justice and holding traffickers to account.
How You Can Get Involved
We need to find and protect more children and families. They are missing but, with your help, we can make sure they are not lost.
This year alone, our partners have:
- Supported 35,000 women and girls to protect themselves from trafficking and violence.
- Helped children like Anita return home, back to school and back to safety.
- Intercepted traffickers working out of hotspots in remote villages, train stations, border crossings and online and brought them to justice.
- Run dozens community groups and trained hundreds of officials and family members to identify risks and prevent trafficking in real time
Please give today and stand with us against trafficking.
Thank you.
Missing,
Not Lost
Break the cycle of trafficking, restore childhoods, safety and hope to those most at risk.
