Law Event
Documentary 'SOLD' on Human Trafficking Launched
Noor Jahan Punam
On 16th November 2011, Winrock International and USAID jointly organized the launching ceremony of MTV-EXIT documentary 'SOLD' and presentation of another documentary by SHISHUK called 'Survivor's Voice'. The documentaries mainly highlight the stories of a few people who have been the victims of human trafficking in different countries around the world.
The guests of honor and special guests of the launching program made some remarks which provided information about the efforts made at government level to combat human trafficking and also about the condition of the human trafficking laws.
Dr. Kamal Uddin Ahmed, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs said that the videos showed how a person's life becomes a disaster if he is a victim of trafficking which is a transnational crime. The human trafficking business is becoming widespread as people are given wrong information. He also said that Bangladesh Government is aware of this and trying to adopt tools to combat this. He emphasized the need on safe migration rather than allowing people to be trafficked. He expressed his belief that trafficking is increasing as there is no legal structure to combat this and the laws which have been used till now to get help in these matters are very outdated. So, the government is taking steps in collaboration with NGOs to enact a new law on the point but the mainstreaming of the legal structure has not yet been possible. He opined that national and international laws should be used to upgrade the previous law to bridge the difference between them. He also stated that the present government has been working for the last three years against trafficking in order to build an institutional protection for these people. The government has established anti-trafficking committees which are also supervised by computerized monitoring cells. He also assured that the government is working on a bill which will come into effect very soon. An effort is being made to build a legal and institutional structure to combat trafficking. A large amount of our national income comes from manpower export so safe migration is necessary. The bill has been drafted in such a way so that manpower export is not affected and provisions have been made to penalize unsafe migration/trafficking.
Advocate Salma Ali, Executive Director, BNWLA, said that we have various provisions against trafficking but everything is on pen and paper. There should be a law preventing the trafficking. There should be an accountable and transparent process to enforce the law. Agencies should be made accountable to government. There should be raid and rescue procedure and good guidelines can be found from Indian judgments. We should also adopt measures to protect the vulnerable victims of trafficking when they are brought back to the local community.
Advocate Shahara Khatun, Honorable Minister of Home Affairs said that human trafficking is increasing everyday worldwide and new forms of trafficking is being adopted and the options of trafficking is modernized. People should be made aware that migration is a right and trafficking is a major breach of human rights. She said that systematic and safe migration should be monitored continuously. She also said that the government is trying to enact the bill as soon as possible. The initiatives of forming monitoring cells are ongoing.
The ceremony was also addressed amongst others by Mr Richard Greene, Charge d' Affaires, US Embassy, Miss Sara Piazzano, Chief of Party, Winrock International, ACT Program, Mr. Ashadul Islam, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment.
The writer is working with Law Desk, The Daily Star.
