She was just 14 and lured to India on the promise of regular work, but instead was locked in a small room with a barred window, beaten by her 'customers' and even woken up so her new 'owners' could force her to have sex.

She was one of the lucky ones who managed to escape, and has dedicated her life to trying to save other young girls from the same fate, tricked by the same promises.

But in the wake of Nepal’s earthquake, the problem has become even more acute as sex traffickers prey on desperate families left with nothing after the natural disaster destroyed vast swathes of the country.

Sunita was just as desperate as many of these young women when she was sold into the sex industry by callous slave traders in Mumbai.

While most children of her age are at school, she was kept locked in a room,and forced to work as a child prostitute.

‘During those five months I was forced to serve up to 30 customers a day seven days a week and 50 costumers a day at public holidays and celebrations, and some of them would beat me,' she told MailOnline.

'Even when I tried to sleep they would wake me up if a customer wanted sex.

‘I was not allowed to go out of the house or leave the room which had bars in front of the windows and I was guarded all the time. 

'Even the local policemen were bribed to turn the blind eye to what happened to me and to the other girls in that house.’

Sunita was lucky: a Buddhist monk became aware of her plight, and rescued her from her prison, eventually helping her cross the border back to Nepal, and her family.

Now 36, she is as determined as ever to save girls from the traders, running Shakti Samuha, a charity whose staff mostly consists of women who also have been trafficked and rescued from Indian brothels.

Nepal has long been a hunting ground for people smugglers, looking for people to sell into modern day slavery.

The Global Slavery Index estimated some 228,700 Nepalese are in modern day slavery across the world, while a 2013 Unicef report said some 7,000 women and children are taken to India to work in the brothels every year.

The organisation estimated there are 200,000 Nepalese working in the brothels.

But many fear the earthquake has made things far worse and Sunita, is increasingly worried for the girls and young women of Nepal, as their desperation makes it even easier to whisk them across the border and into sex slavery.

‘People are more desperate and look for possibilities to survive after the earthquake,’ says Sunita.

‘We fear the number of sex trafficked young women and girls from poor and marginalized communities will rise in the aftermath of the earthquake because they and their families have lost everything and are now living in tents or temporarily shelters. 

'That makes them a vulnerable target.'

Police in India revealed in July they had arrested two traffickers who had smuggled 250 young women out of the disaster-hit country to work as slaves in the Gulf in the three months since the earthquake.

Worse, says Sunita, the girls are getting younger - with the people smugglers manipulating the age on underage trafficked girl’s identity papers.

The teenagers were from the Shindhupalchowk District, to the east of Kathmandu. One of the worst hit in the May 12 aftershock, it has become a prime hunting ground for human traffickers.

But it was not just their youth taken in by the promises made by the smugglers: their own parents believed it would lead to a better life, accepting the 15,000 rupees (£92) from the trafficking agent to pay for a new passport.

Sunita said: ‘The women and girls are been giving false promises by the sex exploiters who often knows the families in advance and who untruthful tell them they will get good jobs and earn many money abroad if they travel with them to another country and that they will be able to support their poor families back home. 

'And the girls will most often believe them.’

Those who were too young to travel alone had their ages changed, and the families then waited for the call.

It came in June, when the girls were called to say their visas had arrived.

From there, they travelled to Kakarvitta, which is at the border to India in the far east of Nepal.

But the girls were lucky, caught by one of the charities which monitor the checkpoints, in the knowledge the smugglers regularly try to whisk their next victims across the border.

According to Tiny Hands International, statements from the girls and the alleged trafficker convinced officers they were being trafficked for the sex industry.

But this was a small victory for those who try so hard to save the girls from a life trapped in the brothels, or manual labour.

It is difficult to get exact figures, but the Nepalese government and Nepalese charity organisations believes the number has increased within the last decades - with some victims as young as six.

Officially, there were just 15 human trafficking cases reported during April and May - when the earthquakes struck. 

(dailymail.co.uk)