On July 31, 2026, Free the Slaves (FTS) convened two stakeholder meetings at the Hotel Mercure in Kathmandu, one with civil society organizations (CSOs) and one with survivor-led organizations, building on groundwork laid the previous day in a meeting with the Ministry of Youth, Labor and Employment (MoYLE). Each session brought together roughly 20 participants as part of FTS’s broader engagement in Nepal as an Alliance 8.7 pathfinder country, the global partnership working to end forced labor, human trafficking, child labor, and modern slavery.
Both sessions opened with a warm welcome and introductions facilitated by Ms. Benu Maya Gurung of AATWIN (Alliance Against Trafficking in Women and Children in Nepal), and Ms. Tsering Diskit of FTS shared survey data illustrating current gaps and opportunities in Nepal’s response to modern slavery. What emerged from the needs assessments discussed at both meetings was a clear, evidence-based picture of where the system is working and where it is not yet reaching the people it is meant to serve.
Stakeholder consultation with CSOs in Nepal
What Survivor-Led Organization Revealed
The needs assessment conducted with survivor networks revealed a significant gap between national policy intentions and the day-to-day realities faced by survivor-led organizations and the communities they represent. These findings were also validated during the meeting.
Consultation remains uneven. Established leadership networks, such as AATWIN, reported occasional consultation with government departments, but grassroots survivor groups said their representation in the process development of the National Master Plan was not considered. Grassroots survivors also described having little detailed information about the actual objectives of Alliance 8.7 or SDG Target 8.7, pointing to a consultation process that remains concentrated among a small number of established organizations rather than reaching frontline communities.
Awareness campaigns alone are not enough. Survivors offered a direct assessment of why children continue to enter exploitative labor despite years of awareness-raising programs: these campaigns, in their view, do not address the underlying economic push-and-pull factors that drive families toward informal and unregulated work. Survivors were clear that children will continue to be pulled into this work until basic survival needs are reliably met at the household level. There were a lot of other factors like peer pressure, broken families, migration, etc., which lead to the continued existence of Child Labor in the communities.
Freedom means more than removal from harm. When asked what the Government of Nepal should do to prevent people from falling back into exploitation, survivors moved past short-term, rescue-focused metrics. They described sustainable freedom as economic self-reliance combined with genuine social acceptance, and called on the state to prioritize comprehensive care, durable livelihood support, and dignified reintegration into community life, not just short-term relief.
There is strong interest among survivor-led organizations in nominating members to the proposed Survivor Advisory Board. At the same time, networks were candid that survivors cannot participate effectively without dedicated logistical support and capacity-building training; participation on paper is not the same as genuinely accessible participation.
Their top priority is localization. For the 2026–2030 roadmap, survivors were unambiguous: the framework must move away from high-level bureaucratic indicators and instead be survivor-centered, accessible, and localized to the realities of specific communities.
Tsering Diskit from Free the Slaves presenting at stakeholder consultation in Nepal.
What Civil Society Organizations Revealed
The needs assessment returned by Nepalese CSOs painted a picture of a fragmented reporting environment, in which organizations doing frontline work have limited direct connection to MoYLE’s national systems. These findings were also validated during the meeting.
Data sharing is fragmented, and trust is limited. Where CSOs do report data, it is often reported annually and routed indirectly through local government, Child Protection Committees, the Child Rights Council, or the Human Rights Commission, rather than shared directly with the concerned department. Some organizations said they had never been asked to submit data to the concerned departments at all, instead channeling information to other channels. CSOs cited a shortage of human resources and the absence of a standardized reporting format from the concerned department, alongside genuine uncertainty about how, when, and where the government actually uses the data they submit.
Ground-level realities complicate identification. CSOs described school dropout and child labor as deeply normalized in the absence of viable livelihood alternatives for households. Identifying hidden child labor remains especially difficult: social workers face real safety concerns when trying to reach certain informal work settings, and physical access to private homes limits the ability to identify children in domestic work, underscoring that this is often invisible work happening behind closed doors, not confined to visible public settings.
Awareness of the framework itself is inconsistent. While CSOs strongly prioritized technical training on international reporting standards and community-led monitoring tools, several grassroots organizations said plainly that they were not aware of Nepal’s second National Master Plan (NMP-II), and others had only “heard of” the specific compliance indicators under the Alliance 8.7 Accountability Framework.
CSOs are calling for structural change, not just more programming. For the 2026–2030 roadmap, CSOs called for integrating localized social safety nets, such as universal child cash grants, with automated school attendance tracking to catch dropouts early, alongside annual social audits and public hearings to hold local government accountable. They also asked for clear legal definitions of hazardous sectors, stronger harmonization between child labor and human trafficking policy, and a shift from reactive, complaint-driven responses toward more proactive prevention and enforcement.
Why This Matters for the Road Ahead?
The survivor and CSO needs assessments tell a consistent story: Nepal’s national commitments under Alliance 8.7 will only translate into real protection if data systems, consultation processes, and funding reach the local and provincial level and if survivors and grassroots organizations are treated as partners in shaping the response, not simply informed of it after the fact. These findings echo, and add critical texture to, the coordination gaps with MoYLE identified during the same week’s meetings, reinforcing why FTS’s upcoming stakeholder workshop is designed to bring government, civil society, and survivor leadership into the same room to design solutions together.
Representatives of survivor-led organizations at the stakeholder consultation in Nepal.
