Trafficking in Nepali women and girls towards India, China and Arab countries is a growing problem. Unemployment in the Himalayan nation is high and many families, to survive, end up selling their daughters to traffickers who force the latter into prostitution. With promises of US$ 40-55 a month, traffickers induce parents to hand over their children. Brothel owners pay them US$ 40-65 a month.”In remote villages, more and more families are forced to sell their youngest daughters in exchange of a monthly payment,” said Parbati Budathoki, a former prostitute in Surkhet District (northern Nepal), told AsiaNews.”Most of the victims are used by their parents or blood relatives as a source of income,” the 19-year-old explained. She herself was sold to a brothel in Delhi (India) when she was only 16 for 15,000 rupees (US$ 280).”In Delhi, I received up to 25 customers a day,” she remembers. “If I did not work, my masters would beat me, burn me with cigarettes. The same would happen to other young women.”