Poverty and illegal migration pave the way for trafficking of people from Bangladesh, who eventually end up in prostitution and dreadful organ trade in foreign lands, government high officials said at a dialogue yesterday.
The Ministry of Home Affairs organised the dialogue on combating human trafficking and launched a National Action Plan to this end at a hotel in the capital.
Bangladesh stands as a source country, from where women aged 18-24 are trafficked to brothels in India and other countries, said Dr Kamal Uddin Ahmed, additional secretary to the home ministry.
The criminals also traffick children for sale in brothels and carry out the ghastly crime of organ transplantation on them, he said, adding that men too are prey to trafficking.
Illegal and unsafe migration creates big scope for human trafficking, he said.
The government aims at bringing the heinous crime significantly down by 2014 through the enforcement of the newly enacted Human Trafficking Deterrence and Suppression Act and the National Action Plan, he said.
Maj Gen Anwar Hossain, director general of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), said the security force rescued 70 women and four children while they were being trafficked to India during the past three months.
He identified allurement of tourism and overseas job, attempt to avoid sexual and physical abuses at home, poverty, and forced labour as the key reasons of human trafficking.
Dan W Mozena, US ambassador to Bangladesh, said the legislation would greatly help fight the horrible crime of trafficking better.
He said a 17-year old Bangladeshi girl, Sonali, who was rescued after three months in a brothel, was still struggling hard to reintegrate herself into normal life.
Foreign Minister Dr Dipu Moni said the government was going to open 19 new foreign missions in different countries, including Lebanon and Mauritius, in the next two years to expand country's manpower export.
Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, minister for expatriates welfare and overseas employment, said the ministry was trying to eliminate brokers to prevent dubiousness in migration.
It should not take one more than Tk 50,000 to migrate through designated authority, he said, and the government had now set up registration centres in 65 districts and one could not go as a migrant labour without registration.
Home Minister Shahara Khatun, Prime Minister's International Affairs Advisor Gowher Rizvi, and Inspector General of Police (IGP) Hassan Mahmood Khandker also spoke on the occasion.
CQK Mustaq Ahmed, senior secretary to the ministry of home affairs, conducted the dialogue, sponsored by the USAID with technical support of Wincrock International.