The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

Several centuries ago Portuguese, Harmad and Mog pirates used to raid many places of Bangladesh to capture young girls and sell them to various parts of the world. One does not require explaining what would happen to their life.

In contemporary Bangla-desh, it is not the foreign pirates but the local traffickers are taking away poor young girls, widows or abandoned women and poverty stricken children to India, Pakistan and other countries of the Middle East on the promise of providing jobs and smuggling them.

They are large in number. The number of such unfortunate women and children stands at around 10,000 annually. Over the last 30 years, a large number of women and children were smuggled out to India and Pakistan.

These unfortunate human beings agreed to make way abroad either knowingly or not aware of the consequences due to frustration and long suffering from poverty.

Sources at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Police said since Bangladesh is largely free from HIV/AIDS, so its women have more demand abroad.

Statistics show the country has total 4,222 kilometres of border and the number of women smuggled out from 1997 to 2002 was 566. More than 2,000 women are being smuggled out annually to the Middle East under the cover of tourist visas. Statistics provided by some non-government organisations (NGOs) said about 200 women are smuggled out of the country per month.

John Davis, technical adviser, of a project titled 'development of children and protecting child trafficking' under the ministry of women and children affairs in his report said although human trafficking has significantly declined in the Middle-Western Europe and the Commonwealth countries, the trafficking scenario in the South Asian countries still remains at a dangerous level.

This region witnesses the trafficking of about 1.5 lakh women and children every year. A section of human faced animals target these helpless people taking advantage of their poverty and ignorance. They are not hesitating to throw these unfortunate people to darkness of life in exchange of some money that they get for it.

Zaida is a victim of such treachery. She is 22. She was waiting over long time to find a better remunerative job to overcome the curse of poverty that her family was through. She almost became frustrated from long waiting. In such situation, a women of Zaida's village, Kamela Khatoon lured her to go to Dhaka where she said Zaida will get a better remunerative job.

Zaida did not think of its far reaching consequences and readily agreed. She did not know Kamela was involved in a group engaged in trafficking of women and children. But she was lucky during their smuggling, Zaida and Kamela were nabbed by the police along with some others.

Infant Mamun, young boy Ripon, Babu and Pervez spent almost eight years of inhuman life as 'camel jockeys' at Dubai in the Middle East. The police arrested two women and a man there as part of an international trafficking gang and recovered five persons from their custody, including a women.

Mamun, who is one of the recovered victims said, eight years ago when he was playing in the street, some traffickers lured him to eat cake with them and took him their captive. This is how they use different tactics to lure women and children to end up them in smuggling.

In Bangladesh, the main reason behind women and child trafficking is poverty. They collect women promising them with good working opportunities at home and abroad. They are then put to sex business under the guise of employment.

Bangladesh has enacted a new law in 1995 titled 'Prevention of Torturing of Women and Children Special Act' to stop the trafficking of women and children. It not only provides for speedy trial of traffickers and also their punishment up to life long imprisonment.

Concerned sources at the ministry of home affairs said the government has strengthened the watch on women and child trafficking at all airports and land ports. The home ministry has also set up a special monitoring cell and a task force.