Human trafficking feared aftershock in Nepal

Kent doctor returns from relief effort

Kelcy Dolan
Posted 5/28/15

Already Nepal has seen the destructive side of Mother Nature after experiencing two 7-plus magnitude earthquakes, but in the months following Nepal could see the exploitative and dangerous side of …

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Human trafficking feared aftershock in Nepal

Kent doctor returns from relief effort

Posted

Already Nepal has seen the destructive side of Mother Nature after experiencing two 7-plus magnitude earthquakes, but in the months following Nepal could see the exploitative and dangerous side of human nature.

Dr. Ehsun Mirza, a doctor at Kent Hospital, said Nepal will only continue to face hardship, some much worse than the earthquake in the coming months, between more natural disasters, less than worthy political agendas and human traffickers.

According to the doctor, America has the opportunity to curb some of those atrocities.

Only days after learning about the earthquake, Mirza volunteered his services to the JRM Foundation for Humanity and left for Kathmandu.

Mirza has done similar relief work in Pakistan, his home country, after the 2005 earthquakes. He said after seeing what happened there he knew he had to do all he could to help the country of Nepal.

Mirza said in the wake of the earthquake relief organizations, “faced a lot of red tape, vested interests and political agendas so we decided to take things straight to the people.”

When he landed in Kathmandu, Mirza along with the JRM team, with a plethora of doctors from different specialties, nurses, IT specialists and other volunteers, worked “under the radar” directly with local organizations and took a school bus full of supplies to Dhulikehel Hospital.

Fortunately, the hospital was unaffected and strategically located at the mouth of a valley, a “funnel of activity.” Quickly, the volunteers pitched their tents, each of which flew the American flag, and got right to work.

Mirza wasn’t in the country more than half a day before he was rounding the hospital floors to meet with patients.

“They were happy we weren’t there to take over, but to augment,” Mirza said. “Their doctors had been working nonstop since the quake; they were tired.”

One story Mirza shared was of a 15-day-old infant dying of kidney failure. He and another doctor, both kidney specialists, worked specifically with adult patients. With no pediatric specialists available in the country, Mirza and the other doctor improvised a dialysis treatment for the infant and within 24 hours the child was off life support and on her way home two days after.

“That’s what we brought to Nepal,” Mirza said, “resourcefulness in all shapes and forms. We saved lives, and I don’t say that to boast, only because it had to be done.”

For the majority of his volunteer trip, Mirza was in the field, working over 14-hour days, traveling to remote villages that hadn’t been serviced since the quake.

Doctors would take two- to three-hour trips into the mountainous terrain to reach devastated villages. Originally, the JRM team was taking vehicles “off-roading to reach the villages.”

Mirza said, “When I say off-roading I don’t mean roads, I mean paths, a bunch of which had been destroyed in the earthquake.”

Eventually, Mirza and the JRM team charted a private helicopter for $2,000 an hour to reach those villages far beyond where the relief effort to date, often traveling four hours in the helicopter before landing.

“Even 12 days after the quake there were people who hadn’t been reached, hadn’t received any form of assistance,” Mirza said.

The copter was many times flagged down by smoke signals, assisted a village and then told about another struggling village not far off.

“We couldn’t help everyone, but we made major stops connecting the dots on the map to save lives,” Mirza said.

In his final two days in Nepal Mirza said he and his teammates from the JRM Foundation saw over 1,000 patients and JRM still has a team in the country working around the clock on relief efforts.

Mirza said, “ Everyone is downplaying the issues in Nepal, even the Nepalese government, but one-eighth of that country is totally destroyed, 10,000 or more people have died and who knows how many displaced. There are a lot more lives at stake.”

Being a mountainous country terrace farming is popular, but after the earthquake the soil is highly unstable.

With monsoon season not even a month away, Mirza predicts that the country will see more destruction caused by mud- and landslides in the coming months than with the initial earthquake.

Similarly, with the accumulation of stagnant water and the fact that many citizens have been displaced and are living under no more than a tarp, cholera and other diseases could cause an epidemic.

Another point of concern is the epidemic that is human trafficking. Traffickers are quickly moving into the country to prey on the displaced, impoverished and vulnerable population.

Already, traffickers flocked to Nepal for the more fair-skinned people to siphon them into Indian sex slavery, and after the earthquake the Nepalese people, separated from friends and family, are more vulnerable. According to Mirza, a trafficker can make $600 or more off one person. The real fear is that the children will fall victim to traffickers.

“The children of Nepal have been torn from their communities, some orphaned. Nine hundred fifty thousand of them are out of school because of the destruction,” Mirza said. “We could lose the youth of this country because who knows who will take them under their wing. That’s how terrorists are born.”

Mirza said there needs to be a big push to bring the villages and back into their homes to curb disintegration of communities and large migrations into the city.

“Honestly, this cannot be solved by private practices and organizations. This is a billion dollar and decade-long process of rehabilitation for the Nepalese people,” Mirza said.

He along with the other members of the JRM team want to see America come together to support Nepal in their time of need.

JRM has challenged President Obama with the Million Dollar Challenge to match every dollar, raised by citizens a hundred-fold. He said as Americans and global citizens we should lead the way in relief efforts.

“What’s great is that as Americans we inherently care,” Mirza said, “and are willing to help as long as we understand the cause is a good one and know our efforts and funds won’t be exploited.”

He said he couldn’t vouch for other organizations, but every penny of JRM’s fund go directly to relief efforts. There are no overhead fees because all volunteers are responsible for themselves, travel living and food while with the JRM team.

He said everyone was excited to see the “American Team.” The Nepalese people are not beggars, but just need a little help in their time of need.

According to Mirza the people are “peaceful and quiet, intelligent, vibrant and resilient with a great spirit.”

He said while working in the field when the team would drop supplies off at a village, and despite everyone being starving from days without food, and hurt from injuries sustained during the earthquake, the Nepalese people would not beg, they did not fight for supplies, they waited together calmly or helped the volunteers before evenly dispersing the goods throughout the community.

Mirza said, “Even the kids do not complain. The peace these people have, they are a different breed altogether. Nepal just needs a little lift to sustain themselves while they are down.”

If you would like more information on or donate to the JRM Foundation for Humanity visit www.jrmfoundation.org.

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