ABSTRACT
Since the late 1980s, the discourse on sex trafficking from Nepal to India among local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), donor partners, academics, and governments has evolved from a small set of questions and speculations to a complex and increasingly sophisticated discussion. Over the last decade, the Nepal-to-India trafficking myth has evolved as more about the trafficking episode has been learned, as agendas have changed, and as the myth itself has been challenged. The Gita myth is comprised of a sequence of "scenarios," which generally correspond to situations and events in a real trafficking episode. In the original Gita myth of a decade ago, NGO, media, and donor scenarios almost unanimously cast the trafficker as a person from "out of town," frequently an Indian or a Nepali from the south or from Kathmandu. India-Nepal government discussions on cross-border trafficking focus on official border crossings, avoiding the uncomfortable subject of the unofficial transportation of goods between countries.
