It is depressing to see that our people, desperate to make ends meet, continue to drown in the Mediterranean Sea while in search of a better life. After the bodies of eight Bangladeshis, who were being trafficked to Italy on a tiny boat carrying 53 people, arrived in Dhaka on Thursday, this newspaper documented the harrowing journey of migration as told by a survivor. Such incidents have made headlines countless times, and if the state keeps failing to address this long-standing crisis, they will keep on doing so.

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Human trafficking needs multi-dimensional response

Gurudas Mondol, the 45-year-old survivor, recalled that en route to Italy, water started leaking into the boat's hull. "The ones inside the hull started yelling and banging the deck from below, but there was no space for even one more person on the deck... Slowly the noise stopped. I could do nothing but sit and listen to them die." Before the journey began, Mondol was among the 90 beaten and bruised migrants, mostly Bangladeshis, who shared space in a room traffickers refer to as the "game ghor," with little to no food. Water was so hard to obtain that they used their towels to collect sweat and sucked on it.

An earlier report in this daily pointed out that Bangladeshis choosing to enter Europe through Libya would almost certainly be held captive by armed militias, tortured, and their families extorted for lakhs of taka. In Mondol's case, he had to pay Tk 14 lakh for the journey, during which hundreds die every year. And yet, Bangladeshis, knowing the dangers, choose to take this route. An update by UNHCR from December 2023 found that of 5,236 refugees and migrants who reached Italy by sea that month, 13 percent were Bangladeshis. And we have to ask: why?

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Prioritise human trafficking prevention

A study has found that these people feel that life in Bangladesh is so uncertain that the risk is worth it. The economic and political instability, the lack of a stable source of livelihood, the unsafe nature of our workplaces—all contribute towards this drastic decision. And this is where the state is failing. It is evident that band-aid solutions will be of little help. For long-term improvement, the government must ensure an environment where these people can ensure a decent life for themselves and their families, which points to making structural changes in the economic and political systems.

Simultaneously, the administration has to clamp down on traffickers, who continue to operate with impunity due to insufficient legal measures and lax monitoring of law enforcement agencies. It has to monitor recruiting agencies, coordinate with labour-receiving countries to identify and eliminate trafficking networks, diligently prosecute traffickers, and assist survivors like Mondol.