Lax enforcement of anti-human trafficking law

The desperation writ large on the faces of 'boat people' rescued from the coasts of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia does not match with overall economic conditions of most people in Bangladesh. Many fellow citizens back home are found not prepared to accept that the Bangladeshis would make such perilous and uncertain sea journeys to earn their livelihood in foreign countries. But truth is stranger than fiction. A sizeable number of the people rescued from sea are from Bangladesh, according to reports published in a number of local contemporaries.
These fortune-seekers, in fact, have been lured to get themselves involved in journeys that, in most cases, end up in untold sufferings. Local human traffickers who are a part of network operating in Malaysia and Thailand have been active for long. They employ a number of ways to trap the unsuspecting fortune-seekers without any kind of resistance from the agencies concerned. This is an incontrovertible reality, notwithstanding the enactment of the Human Trafficking Deterrence and Suppression Act by the government as far back as in 2012.  The problem as usual lies with the enforcement of the law concerned and disposal of the cases filed under its various provisions.
Thus, more than 1600 cases, according to a report published in this paper last Saturday, were filed under the act mentioned above between 2012 and April this year against alleged human traffickers. But a very insignificant number of such cases have been disposed of, until now. The law concerned provides for the creation of a special tribunal to try human trafficking-related cases. But such cases are referred to another tribunal formed under the Women and Children Repression Act of 2002 which is itself reportedly overburdened with a large backlog of cases. Until now not a single case has been disposed of, awarding exemplary punishment to a human trafficker. Allegations have it that the police are not serious about either registering cases or making investigation into human trafficking issues.
No matter what the leaders of the sector concerned claim, an unscrupulous section of manpower exporters is very much involved in human trafficking. Such people, through false promises, make the fortune-seekers believe that the reports or stories in the media on malpractices in manpower export are not based on facts. Factors such as poverty and unemployment usually make them susceptible to allurement. And the human traffickers do know well how to exploit their helplessness. The indifference on the part of the official agencies concerned has made these people even bolder.
The policymakers do need to understand that the stories about illegal migration of Bangladesh nationals tend to make their claims about progress and development hollow. So, they should make all-out efforts to stop the incidence of trafficking of the Bangladesh nationals. However, the job might prove to be a daunting one, for the issue is not confined alone to laws and their enforcement. The creation of adequate number of employment opportunities for unskilled, illiterate and semi-literate people in all the regions of the country -- and that, too, being evenly dispersed -- remains the key to solving the issue.