Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association (BNWLA) in a study revealed that almost all victims of human traffickers are from poor families. Of them 95 per cent female victims are illiterate, 5 per cent have primary education, 61 per cent landless, 50 per cent women are lured with offers of lucrative jobs and 15 per cent are trafficked by marriage offers. BNWLA repatriated a total of 116 women and children from different parts of the country in 1999.

Meanwhile, UNICEF revealed that most of the guardians of trafficked women and children are landless, and of them 45 per cent are farmers and 16 per cent day-laborers while the rest are small traders.

"Trafficking may not be controlled without poverty alleviation specially in boarder areas," Masud Hassan Siddique, project coordinator of Trafficking in Children, South Asia (TCSA) under ILO said. TCSA has identified poverty along six other causes for trafficking of women and children from this part of the world.

Over two lakh women and children were trafficked out of Bangladesh to India in the last 10 years while the rescue rate is only 8.88 per cent. The4 victims who are smuggled to various middle eastern countries and Pakistan, and mostly forced into prostitution.

The report showed that 20 per cent of the trafficked women are working in brothels of Kolkata while some five lakh in Pakistan and other parts of India. Some 25,000 women and children are trafficked out of Bangladesh to other countries every year.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimated, between 700,000 and 2 million women and children are trafficked globally every year for exploitative purposes. It makes an annual business of about ten to twelve billion US dollars.

The history of women and child trafficking from Bangladesh goes back to the early 50s when camel race and the use of children as 'jockeys' gained momentum in the Middle East. In the course of time, this criminal business has taken an alarming proportion.

Women and children are trafficked out of Bangladesh to various countries through a good number of routes. Satkhira frontier is one through which 66 per cent women and children are smuggled out of the country. Creating job opportunities is needed to curb the menace of human trafficking in boarder areas.