State Minister for Law Qamrul Islam on Sunday stressed the need for improving the country’s socio-economic condition to fight human trafficking.
“Poverty, unemployment and helplessness are the root causes behind the human trafficking in the country, which should be removed to combat the crime. But the government alone cannot do it. Concerted efforts are needed,” he said. Qamrul came up with this observation at the inaugural workshop of ‘Improvement of Prosecutorial process of human trafficking cases,’ organised by Rights Jessore at the CIRDAP auditorium in the city, with its President Advocate Sharif Abdur Rakib in the chair.
“The government has taken various steps to remove poverty through social safety net programmes but the government alone cannot do it. Government and private partnership is needed in this regard,” Qamrul said.
“Bangladesh is the transit line of human trafficking and poverty-stricken people, especially helpless women, become the victims of trafficking and suffer the worst. The victims are helpless whereas the traffickers are organised and affluent,” he said.
Concerted efforts of both government and non-government organisations are needed to fight abominable crime of human trafficking.
Calling upon lawyers, he said, “Human trafficking is a horrible crime. So, all should come forward to review the anti-trafficking laws to remove the loopholes of it. All obstacles on the way to conduct the cases should be removed to ensure justice for the victims.”
Qamrul also stressed the need of separate investigation cell for proper investigation of cases.
“Steps for separate investigation cell are indispensable to ensure proper investigation,” he said.
He also requested the Home Ministry to formulate a witness protection act to ensure justice for the victims.
Qamrul further said, the present government has taken various steps to combat trafficking and women repression, which the previous government could not do.
Among others, Dr Kamal Uddin Ahmed, Additional secretary of Home Ministry, Suraiya Banu, Senior Programme of Winrock, Binoy Krishna Mallik, Executive Director of the Rights Jessore, spoke on the occasion.
Dr Kamal Uddin Ahmed said, “Bangladesh is a transit line for human trafficking to other neighbouring countries. The victims are not only women and children, but also men.”
“There were no complete law to fight trafficking but the present government has enacted a separate law, ‘human trafficking deterrent and suppression act’ which has been highly praised both at home and abroad. Bangladesh is not in the watch list for human trafficking,” he said.
He, however, said that implementation of law was very important in combating trafficking.
Tariqul Islam, programme manager of Rights Jessore presented a key note paper in which he highlighted the problems of investigation and existing trial process of human trafficking cases by reviewing around 100 separate cases.
He also pointed out several problems in human trafficking cases including absence of survivor friendly environment, faulty first information report (FIR), Investigation officer’s inexperience in cases, absence of public prosecutor’s opinions in submitting investigation report.
-With The Independent input
