Ubinig, an NGO, organised the press conference at National Press Club in the city as a follow up of its three-day conference on 4th Saarc Peoples' Forum at Ridoypur in Tangail last month.

A total of 87 participants from Pakistan, Nepal, India, Malaysia, the United Kingdom and host Bangladesh took part in the conference that discussed various issues affecting the lives of people living in South Asia.

The issues included agriculture, food sovereignty, natural resources, trade, migration and trafficking, technology, population, security and human rights.

A declaration which was adopted at Ridoypur conference was also placed at the press conference.

The declaration said with the monopoly over the global food chain, the developed nations have been making the people of least developed countries insecure in food and nutrition.

Such trade could only promote industrial food production and destroy agriculture, it apprehended.

The speakers demanded multilateral agreement to eradicate hunger and cancellation of India's river linking project.

They rejected the report of Trafficking in Persons by US State Department saying the report unduly blames the source countries of trafficking but there are no actions against the user and receiving countries.

The speakers said the declaration adopted in Saarc Peoples' Forum should be included in the Saarc Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution.

A copy of the declaration will be submitted to the delegates and ministers before the Saarc summit in Dhaka and WTO ministerial meetings, they added.

Farida Akhter of Ubinig, Dr Shahid Zia of Pakistan, Bhaskar Goswami of India and Subodh Raj Pyakurel of Nepal were present at the press conference.