Bangladesh fared poorly in fighting human trafficking in 2016, mainly due to poor investigation and prosecution, according to a report of the US State Department. 

In this year's US Trafficking in Persons report, Bangladesh was placed on the tier 2 watch list, down from tier 2 where the country saw itself for five years since 2012. 

The figures provided by the report back it up. The government investigated 122 sex and 168 labour trafficking cases last year, a decrease from 181 sex and 265 labour trafficking cases a year ago.

The authorities prosecuted 302 alleged traffickers in 2016, compared with 481 in 2015. Only three traffickers were convicted in 2016, down from four in 2015 and 15 in 2014.

"Convictions remained rare because the government had not dedicated adequate resources to pre-trial investigations, and short timelines for the completion of cases led to inadequately prepared and subsequently unsuccessful prosecutions," says the report released by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Washington on Tuesday. 

And the proposed tribunal that would solely try human trafficking cases has not been made functional yet.

The annual report grades countries in four categories -- tier one for being the best and tier three for being the worst in handling trafficking cases. A country belonging to tier 2 means it has not met the minimum standards of providing protection to trafficking victims but is making significant efforts.

The countries on the tier 2 watch list are making significant efforts, but the absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking, from these countries, is very significant and they are failing to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking.

Bangladesh was on the tier 2 watch list also in 2010 and 2011.

The government has continued to put in some efforts to prevent trafficking. But its failure to address the issue of high recruitment fees that migrant workers pay for jobs overseas has an impact on the trafficking situation. 

The Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies has been allowed to set recruitment fees sufficiently high to render many migrant workers indebted and vulnerable to trafficking.

The report gives an example of Saudi Arabia's recruiting male workers, lifting a seven-year ban last year. According to the agreement, the maximum recruitment cost should not exceed Tk 165,000, but the actual cost was three to four times the amount set.

The State Department suggested that Bangladesh take steps so that migrant workers are exempted from paying recruitment fees. The employers instead should pay the fees, it said. 

"Over the years, Bangladesh has framed good policies and enacted laws. But the implementation is very poor. The big fishes of the trafficking networks are not being brought to book," said Salma Ali, executive director of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers' Association.

Bangladesh needs to focus on allocating adequate money to implement the laws to combat human trafficking. Otherwise, it may see its position further down, and the US may consider imposing sanctions, Salma told The Daily Star.

Bangladesh finalised the rules of the 2012 Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act in January 2017 and drafted an implementation roadmap for the 2015-2017 national action plan.

However, complicity of government officials in trafficking offences remained a serious problem, according to the report.

"Police took bribes and sexual favours to ignore potential trafficking at brothels.”

Observers also accused district employment officials of facilitating trafficking and border guards of ignoring potential trafficking crimes at maritime embarkation points.

"Some traffickers in rural areas were politically-connected and therefore operated with impunity," the State Department stated in the report.

It said Bangladesh government identified 355 victims in 2016 whereas the number was 1,815 in 2015 and 2,899 in 2014.

Children and adult female victims had access to support services at government shelters, but NGOs observed that the services did not meet minimum standards of care. On the other hand, the government did not provide any shelter or rehabilitation to adult male victims.

"NGOs noted insufficient protection [to the victims during judicial proceedings] resulted in traffickers' threatening victims not to pursue cases against them." Some victims of trafficking were instead detained and fined for not carrying passports.

In the report, the US suggested focusing more on prosecutions and convictions, providing trafficking victims with standard care and rehabilitation and ensuring punishment of traffickers.