Dhaka starts verifying identities of slave trade victims on Oct 28

FE Report
Bangladesh will start on October 28 the work on verification of identities of its nationals from among those arrested and held in different detention centres in Thailand, officials said.
"We will start to verify them step by step. We hope to start the verification of first group on October 28," said Secretary (bilateral) Mustafa Kamal at a press briefing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) Friday.
The MoFA convened the press conference to brief journalists on the upcoming visits of the president and the prime minister to the United Arab Emirates.
Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali, flanked by Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque, Secretary (Bilateral, Training and Consular) Mustafa Kamal and the Directors-General of the ministry, addressed the journalists.
Replying to a query from a journalist, secretary Kamal, who oversees the whole process and was seated next to the minister, said they would get access to 30 detainees on Oct 28 for the verification.
A total of 118 Bangladeshis are now staying in five to six detention centres, and the Thai authorities have allowed consular access to 30 in the first phase, he added.
Earlier on October 19, the foreign minister said Bangladesh had sought "consular access" to verify the nationalities of the detainees in Thailand, 118 of whom claimed themselves to be Bangladeshis.
According to media reports the 118 Bangladeshis had been abducted and taken to Thailand to be sold as modern-day slaves.
The foreign minister said they were the "victims of human trafficking". Thai authorities had informed Dhaka that some 118 people had identified themselves as Bangladeshi citizens from among 134 people rescued in two groups.
Earlier, the BBC and the BBC Bangla had reported that some 130 Bangladesh nationals were rescued after being abducted and shipped to Thailand to be sold as 'slaves'.
The rescued men were promised well-paid jobs before being drugged, bound and kidnapped.
Thai police recently found scores of sick and exhausted boat people hiding on a remote island and all but one of the 79 suspected human-trafficking victims were from Bangladesh.
According to press reports, some racketeers are engaged in abducting innocent men and boys luring them with false promises of work abroad, then shipping them to Thailand and Malaysia.
There they are held in jungle camps or houses until relatives secure their release by paying the human traffickers a ransom - usually several thousand dollars each.
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