Two Nights in Kathmandu

 If you’re old enough to be alive during the 1980s and groove to the eclectic tunes of that decade, you’ve probably heard Murray Head’s smash pop hit One Night in Bangkok and its unmistakable lyrics…“One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble.  Not much between despair and ecstasy.  One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble.  Can't be too careful with your company.”  For some reason I thought of this song when I realized had just spent not one but two nights in Kathmandu and felt so humbled by the experience – the people I met, the work being done, and the sacrifices being made despite the difficulties there. 

Nepal recently emerged from a decade-long civil war that ravaged the country as any violent conflict will do.  Electricity is in short supply and load sharing allows for about 8-11 hours of electricity per day.  The rest of the time there are no lights and no opportunity to use anything that requires electrical power to run it unless you have a generator but you can probably imagine that those are not a common occurrence by any stretch of the imagination.  It’s also a bit chilly this time of year in Nepal.  I realized this in particular when I stepped out of the shower Saturday morning and could very clearly see my own breath as I shivered away in the early morning cold, but still ever so glad for a hot shower before the 36 hour journey home.  And then there was the night driving.  Driving in a taxi at night with no lights but those of the cars and motorcycles, coupled with the dusty, pothole ridden roads made me think of scenes from Mel Gibson’s post-apocalyptic Mad Max films. 

That all said, I found Kathmandu to be a great place and I very much enjoyed my stay there thanks to the very kind, welcoming, and helpful people I consistently encountered.  You can’t judge a book by its cover as we all well know but seem too often to forget. And this was certainly the case in Kathmandu where my research visits to NGOs assisting survivors of sex trafficking allowed me to catch a glimpse of some of the magnificence of human virtue below the surface of poverty and desperation.

Nepal is a main source country for women and children trafficked into prostitution, both within Nepal and across the border into India.  I visited several NGOs in Kathmandu that assist survivors of sex trafficking as well as women and children particularly vulnerable to being trafficked through income generation programs.  These programs tend to largely consist of the sale of merchandise made by survivors which is of primary relevance to my thesis research examining how cause marketing (marketing efforts associated with a particular cause that seeks to influence the recipient’s behavior) can help such initiatives operate profitably while maintaining their social impact – both in terms of the survivors they employ and the awareness they raise about sex trafficking through sales of their products. 

I’m focusing primarily on the first aspect as a business case study but this second aspect is particularly relevant because as long as the demand exists – as long as there are men out there who are willing to pay to have sex with women and children, there will be a large profit motive for some to force the most vulnerable members of society into the sex trade for material gain.  It’s really horrendous if we stop to think about it. The hope is that the awareness raised through the sales of these products will play some small part in reducing that demand while fulfilling the primary purpose of providing a source of a sustainable livelihood for those who already fell prey to the sex trafficking trade as well as those who were reached before being trafficked.

Next post is sure to be an uplifting one with details about the magnificence of human virtue that I experienced at these organizations!