Strengthen trans-border cooperation to fight human trafficking, say experts

Speakers during a webinar today stressed on the need for strengthening legal procedure and increasing national and trans-border cooperation to effectively fight human trafficking.

They emphasised on reduction of poverty in the country and said economic insolvency was a major reason behind people falling victim to human traffickers.

Bangladesh National Woman Lawyers' Association (BNWLA) organised the webinar marking the World Day against Trafficking in Persons 2020.

Experts from Bangladesh, India and Nepal took part in the webinar.

BNWLA President Advocate Salma Ali said Bangladesh has related laws, national plan of action, bilateral agreement and extradition treaty to curb human trafficking.

Despite this, many people especially women and children have fallen victim to human trafficking, she said.

She said the country needed to formulate a separate law for the protection of trafficking victims and witnesses.

Deputy Inspector General Shah Alam of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) said human trafficking is an organised crime but in Bangladesh, cases are usually filed against perpetrators who only remain active on a field-level.

One major challenge to fight human trafficking is that victims usually feel hesitant to file cases against traffickers, said the CID official.

Taking trafficking cases to the trial stage is another challenge because the counterpart is usually powerful and they try to harass and tempt the plaintiffs in many ways, he added.

Tapoti Bhowmick, a Kolkata-based rights activist working on human trafficking, said her country has sufficient number of laws related to human trafficking but there was little implementation of said laws.

She also said there was lack of effort to properly investigate human trafficking cases.

Jobaida Parvin, general secretary of BNWLA, said fragile economic conditions often forced people to seek job opportunities, eventually making them victims to human trafficking.