Fighting human trafficking

Human trafficking is rising alarmingly around the world. It is truly horrifying to know that international organisations have reported at least 6,781 trafficking victims so far this year, including 961 for sex trafficking, 3,764 for labour trafficking and 2,056 for unspecified forms of trafficking. According to the US Department of State's 2023 trafficking in persons ranking, Bangladesh ranks at Tier-2. It also reported that our government has not yet been successful to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking from the country. What is more worrying is that most victims of trafficking are women and children. Moreover, many of our young men, desperate to settle in European countries, are drowning in the Mediterranean Sea, dying in the desert heat and even being tortured brutally by the international human trafficking and other criminal gangs.

Eradicating human trafficking in Bangladesh is not easy as traffickers change their strategies every now and then. Hence, taking stringent measures to combat human trafficking is necessary. The reasons why human trafficking is increasing must be investigated in depth. According to the government's Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Bill-2012, human traffickers often get impunity. Although there is a provision of imprisonment according to the law, the traffickers in most cases are released only with a fine. As a result, human trafficking increases. We urge the authorities concerned to take strict action in this regard. Human trafficking is not an isolated problem. Hopefully if 'zero tolerance' policy against the traffickers is taken, it will play a vital role in preventing human trafficking from Bangladesh.

Al Amin,

Student of University of Dhaka, Dhaka,

alaminsarkar522@gmail.com