27 women detained at TIA

KATHMANDU: Authorities have detained 27 women at Kathmandu’s international airport after suspecting they were being trafficked or illegally sent to Kuwait under the guise of tourist travel, police said Thursday.

The women, aged between 22 and 29, were intercepted Wednesday night at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) while preparing to board separate FlyDubai flights to Muscat, the capital of Oman.

According to the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office, the women were traveling on visit visas and carried valid airline tickets, hotel bookings and Omani visas.

However, immigration officials became suspicious after discovering Kuwaiti visas in their passports, prompting further scrutiny.

Senior Superintendent of Police Santosh Khadka said an investigation is underway to determine whether the women were being routed through Oman to work illegally in Kuwait.

Authorities believe the women may have been planning to travel onward from Muscat to Kuwait, where the recruitment of Nepali women for domestic work remains restricted due to longstanding concerns over labor exploitation and abuse.

Police say traffickers and unauthorized recruitment networks have increasingly used third-country transit routes to bypass Nepal’s foreign employment regulations.

In some cases, women are allegedly selected by local agents upon arrival and placed in private households as domestic workers.

Nepal has previously documented cases involving migrant women facing physical abuse, exploitation and gender-based violence while employed in domestic labor roles in Gulf countries.

Investigators are now working to identify and dismantle the network believed to be behind the attempted departures.

The detained women remain under questioning as authorities examine the circumstances surrounding their travel arrangements.