This article describes how fraudsters in Nepal persuade vulnerable families to hand over their children to the "orphanage industry." This practice has been occurring for over two decades in Nepal's remote mountain villages. As the author notes, well-dressed men promise education and a better life for children, but "behind the traffickers’ crocodile smiles lies a life of sexual slavery, forced labour, or destitution as a commodity in the huge orphanage industry."
Child trafficking became a significant problem in Nepal with the armed conflict that began in 1996. Families wishing to protect their young boys from conscription by Maoist rebels paid to have them taken to "safe homes" in Kathmandu. Once there, the children were presented as orphans used to solicit donations from tourists.
When the war ended in 2006, the lucrative orphanage industry continued, as international organizations stepped in to place the "orphans" dumped by traffickers into homes. Thus, traffickers adapted their business model by finding more children to recruit as "orphans" by exploiting desperate parents. Vulnerable parents are unable to track down their children, because once they lost contact, few can afford to travel to Nepal’s five major tourist districts (which house 82% of institutions) to track down their children.