trafficking7

Missing children feared victims of flesh trade

DHAKA, Apr 11: The sudden disappearance of 150 children aged between 10 and
15 years from Kurigram distict, bordering India, last month, has led to fears that
they have been kidnapped for induction into the international flesh trade.
Although two weeks have passed since the children went missing from in and
around Kurigram town - 330 km west of here - law enforcement agencies have yet
no clue as to their fate.
But many believe there is a good chance that these unfortunate children have
been smuggled en masse to India, Pakistan and the oil-rich Gulf Sheikhdoms to
be harnessed into the flesh trade and menial employment.
Never before in Bangladesh have so many children gone missing at the same
time and from the same place. On the other hand trafficking in women and
children has, of late, assumed alarming proportions in Bangladesh.
With more than 46 per cent of the country’s 127 million people living below the
poverty line, traffickers are taking advantage of the dehumanising poverty to lure
away hundreds of women and children with false promises of jobs and a secure
life abroad.
Traffickers based in India and Pakistan are known to have established strong
networks in the poorer South Asian countries of Bangladesh and Nepal and use
them to easily smuggle them out easily through the porous borders.
Bangladesh and India have a 4,222 km long common border stretching over 28
districts of Bangladesh’s 64 districts.
The human contraband is assembled in Calcutta, from where they are sold to
middlemen who supply the brothels of India and Pakistan.
Many of the girls are transferred to the Gulf countries by Pakistani agents. About
80 per cent of the boys, girls and women trafficked to different countries remain
untraced, says a report by the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association
(BNWLA).
It is estimated that on average 7,000 women and children are trafficked every
year. More than 70,000 women have been smuggled out of Bangladesh since
1990, the report added.
The report, conducted with assistance from US Agency for International
Development (USAID), focused on 250 frontier villages under six sub-districts
between October 1998 and october 1999. It mentioned that victims were poor and
illiterate.
Divorced women and children from broken families are particularly vulnerable
according to the report.
Upto 27 per cent of the female victims were in the 13-16 age group while another
55 per cent were aged between 17 and 24. BNWLA managed to repatriate 116
women and children from different countries in 1999.
Addressing a regional seminar, Tahmina Hussain, Secretary, Ministry of Women
and Children Affairs, said tafficking in women and children was directly linked to
many social factors including unemployment,improper functioning of social
organisations, discrimination and poverty.
Since it was not possible for the Government alone to combat the problem there
should be closer collaboration among national and regional organisations in
addressing the scourge, she said.
June Kukita, of the UNICEF said trafficking has become a global problem. The UN
agency has been providing funds to a number of organisations to create
awareness against human tafficking, she said.
Bangladesh must have good governance in the border areas which is critical to
controlling cross-border trafficking, says Giasuddin Pathan, Chief of the Non-
Governmental Organisation (NGO) Affairs Bureau.
Flesh trade, organ harvesting, and domestic work are the main fields where the
trafficked women and children are being put to expolitative use, he said.
It is alleged that instead of curbing smuggling of women and children some
members of the law enforcing agencies themselves extend a helping hand to the
traffickers in exchange for a share of the booty.
BNWLA chief Salma Ali emphasises awareness programmes but minces no word in
expressing her dismay over the role of the law enforcing agencies and has
openly accsed them of doing nothing to curb human tafficking.
BNWLA has put forward a set of 16 recommendations to the Government to end
the racket chief among them being the provision of food for education for
vulnerable children and food for work for vulnerable women.
The constitution of vigilant teams at the grassroot levels comprising local
Government representatives, community leaders, teachers and parents is
another important recommendation.
Two months ago Bangladesh enacted tough laws against human trafficking
making the offence punishable by death or a maximum of 20 years imprisonment -
but implementation would depend on good governance and community
participation.